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105

How often do you admit you were wrong? (startrek.website)

submitted 5 days ago by jtrek@startrek.website to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

103 comments fedilink hide all child comments

As the title says, how often do you admit you're wrong? Is it different when it's a factual dispute versus something more subjective?

I make an effort to concede early if I'm in error. I think because my mother almost never admits fault. She'll fall back to "that's not what I meant" or similar deflections first, and that's really annoying.

The last big factual error I made was about the distance of walking, and that's where I learned about Taxicab Geometry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry ).

I think some people believe admitting fault is a sign of weakness, but I find it's more of a power move. It takes strength to do it, and people can tell when you're sweating and desperate. Usually it leads to resolving the conflict faster and cheaper, too.

(I expect some people will feel the urge to reply they're never wrong. I'll file that under never admits fault.)

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[–] hraegsvelmir@ani.social 2 points 5 days ago

I meant more when I realize that I'm clearly in the wrong in my first post. Like, I made some ignorant comments on Lemmy concerning Portuguese a while back, and someone who knew the language way better than I did came along and pointed out my post was bullshit and ableist. In the past, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have conceded the point, and just kept arguing away and finding whatever sources backed me up, without being too critical of them. This time, I said, "Wow, that was an incredibly shit take I had." and decided I should probably take a break from bothering people on that instance for a while and just keep my mouth shut until I was satisfied I'd learned better.

I'm still game to argue a valid point when I know that I'm correct and I don't think I'm just feeding a troll, but I feel like I've gotten better at owning it when I realize I've been supporting an untenable and/or indefensible position than I was 10 or 15 years ago, and moving on to change my views.