Because I want to be right, I love to be wrong. Or more correctly, to realize why I’m wrong. I’m not sure how it came about, my best guess is it has something to do with humor, but every time I realize I’m wrong, I get happy. It gives me a stupid grin across my face and makes me snicker. It also happens when I realize why someone else is wrong. (as in becoming aware of what mistake they have made, or what information they are missing—not just that they are mistaken!)
Sure, most people want to be right, but they hate to be wrong. They get ashamed, frustrated, blame themselves, and try to avoid it. The problem, I believe, is that they have bundled “being wrong” together with realizing that they’re wrong. To avoid these feelings, they unconsciously try to avoid giving up on their beliefs for as long as they can get away with it.
If you want to be right then you should love realizing that you’re wrong, because every time you do, you’ll get more right.
In short, I guess you would call this skill “being able to update”. Just wanted to give my theory of how it works for me, and why so many are bad at it. The reason behind why most people have this faulty behavior is most likely the pursuit of status. Groups don’t reward ability to update, in fact they punish it. You lose prestige, they’ll call you a flip-flopper, instead of praising your ability to discard false knowledge. Which explains a lot about the state of the world and it’s leaders, really!
Because I want to be right, I love to be wrong. Or more correctly, to realize why I’m wrong. I’m not sure how it came about, my best guess is it has something to do with humor, but every time I realize I’m wrong, I get happy. It gives me a stupid grin across my face and makes me snicker. It also happens when I realize why someone else is wrong. (as in becoming aware of what mistake they have made, or what information they are missing—not just that they are mistaken!)
Sure, most people want to be right, but they hate to be wrong. They get ashamed, frustrated, blame themselves, and try to avoid it. The problem, I believe, is that they have bundled “being wrong” together with realizing that they’re wrong. To avoid these feelings, they unconsciously try to avoid giving up on their beliefs for as long as they can get away with it.
If you want to be right then you should love realizing that you’re wrong, because every time you do, you’ll get more right.
In short, I guess you would call this skill “being able to update”. Just wanted to give my theory of how it works for me, and why so many are bad at it. The reason behind why most people have this faulty behavior is most likely the pursuit of status. Groups don’t reward ability to update, in fact they punish it. You lose prestige, they’ll call you a flip-flopper, instead of praising your ability to discard false knowledge. Which explains a lot about the state of the world and it’s leaders, really!