Ask Lemmy

narcissist do that, they wont admit, and will just double down.

I am happy to do so. If I see evidence, I immediately accept.

What can be also hard is to admit that you don't know, but that can be turned into a good thing by admitting your ignorance and either listening to someone's reasoning, or together try to find an answer. Especially with kids, part of being a parent was learning with them as you seeked out answers to a simple question that you weren't sure about. A subset of the XKCD Ten Thousand. Being right or appearing to know something isn't always as good as the journey to get to the actual facts.

I'm long-term married, and that just dies not work without the ability to admit when you're wrong — even and especially when the other person is also wrong.

I admit I'm wrong when I'm wrong. If I'm factually wrong, I say I stand corrected. If I do something bad, I apologize. I fear it looks like I'm bragging right now but it shouldn't be something to brag about, it should be what everyone does. It's what mature people do.

People who can't admit they're wrong completely close themselves off to learning or growing. They think they're protecting themselves from shame by making excuses that they meant something else or it's someone else's fault they did a bad thing, but oftentimes they suffer even worse consequences by behaving that way

On the flipside, though, the other extreme is also bad. You shouldn't concede that you're wrong when you're not wrong

I'm never ~~wrong~~ right

When ever i am wrong

I’m rarely certain enough to claim that I’m right. Oftentimes I’ll acknowledge that uncertainty by stating where/when I heard something so the other person can judge the validity of that source themself.

That said, if I am confident in something and I’m told that I’m wrong, I’ll usually look it up there or just say something like “that’s not my understanding but I can’t dive into it now.” Then when I do have time I’ll do a bit of research, or if the topic comes up again I’ll assert what I was confident in with the caveat that so-and-so told me this other thing.

If I do the research and find that I was wrong, I’ll try to remember that the next time I see the other person and let them know I confirmed they were right.

Only 3-5 times a day.

(More would make my good reputation go away)

To children, I try to admit it every time. I don't want them to grow up thinking that adults are always correct.

To adults, it depends on them. If they are stable and reasonable they I'll do it, but not when the admission is itself grounds for derision.

Probably around 2/3rds of the time, with perhaps half of those cases happening in the convo and the other half some time later. And even then, maybe I'm being too soft on myself, lol.

More and more as time goes by. I can definitely recognize that there have been times where I would have dug in and tried to argue my way out to the bitter end, but now I find myself just saying "You know, I don't really want to waste my time with this" and just cutting my losses. Sometimes it'll get a "You know what, my bad," and sometimes I just realize I never really had anything worthwhile to contribute, and just see myself out of the discussion. I've had shit takes called out in the past, including on topics I thought myself fairly knowledgeable about. Before, I would have been right back in there looking up sources and trying to eke out a "win" in those sorts of circumstances. These days, I'd rather just concede the point early on and go about my life. I don't have free time to go wasting entrenching myself to defend a position that's already benn demonstrated to be untenable and/or just completely incorrect.

I kinda did today. Was talking to a guy on the weekend and I was wrong on a thing but not sure if I will see him again or remember to mention it. Somewhat regularly anyway. Whats funny online is you can meet a certain type where you can cede part of an argument and say something is wrong and they will go with. Well then you must be all wrong. Usually its pretty hard to converse with them after that as they will obsess over the one point and its like ugh. Its a good indicator for me though.

And mean it?

Prove me wrong and find out

I think some people believe admitting fault is a sign of weakness, but I find it’s more of a power move.

Yep. Potentially unethical protip: a lot easier to admit you're wrong when you make claims carelessly to begin with.

As often as I am. Which has become less common in my old age.

Often, because I'm often a potato.

Sometimes I nearly fall into the "I don't care about facts, I'm still right" trap. It's really enerving to know I might really fall in some day.

I tell people I hate being wrong, so the sooner I am corrected or can correct myself the better.

And the answer is... whenever I'm wrong. I am fairly diligent about thinking through what I say and do, but everybody makes mistakes or lacks knowledge, so I am quick to admit being wrong when I am.

Also, counterintuitively, quickly and casually admitting to being wrong often serves to make people forget you were wrong in the first place. My wife and I have had conversations where she admits being wrong (after entirely too much argument), and comments about how I'm never wrong. And I tell her I'm wrong all the time, I just admit it quickly instead of making a big deal about it, so it's not very memorable. (As we've gotten older, those conversations have become more rare, but she still had me 3D print a medal and trophy wall mount, where she gets a "You Were Right" medal or a trophy each time she's right... like when she convinced me to take my vomiting dog to the vet at night on a weekend and saved his life, and ended up with a dachshund trophy for her wall)

This is something I need to work on, and its more apparent to me after having a conversation with my mother recently.

She said something quite unpleasant to my bf, and when I said how hurtful it was to both of us I was met with her denial, her refusal to see how hurtful it was and it was my fault for being upset, and also that I should just move on and forget about it

If she'd said that it came out wrong, or was sorry to have said something that had landed in a hurtful way etc that's all I/we would have needed

Unfortunately i can see this attitude in myself, in the fact I find it near impossible to apologise for anything

I think my mother has a lot of her own issues around this, and I have my own 'version' because of my issues (my autism, and the fact that she's my mum)

So I'm now going to do my best to rethink my behaviour and do some self reflection...

I really don't want to be like my mother at all

I think that it's natural for people to think they admit when they're wrong, but it's also natural to not admit it. As humans we don't make decisions based on logic, we do it based on emotions. We then instead explain our decisions with logic. I think the usual way people's minds change is that they'll effectively be convinced of something but won't really admit or accept it (or even be consciously aware of it), but then the next time the topic comes up they'll have the new opinion.

often. usually, when it's something I misjudged. there's no shame in it - I had x information, I thought it would be a good idea to do y. I forgot to consider z. can't win 'em all. or yep I screwed I up I did these calculations / tasks wrong because I was rushing.

it's harder when it's an "oh shit yeah I was out of line" thing, but I do it whenever I can because I genuinely want to know if I acted appropriately or not

I will always own up to being wrong if I agree that I was wrong. I will be an absolute pain in your ass if I think I'm being blamed for something that's unfair/untrue.

Early and often. I used to be one of those people who would just never admit if I'm wrong, grew up with them for sure. Learned it's WAY less stressful to just admit the moment you realize you're wrong.

That said, I use devils advocating to figure out what my actual opinions are, so I will argue positions I'm not 100% sure of pretty adamantly. Always seems to throw people when we debate for 20 minutes, me passionately defending my stance and then at the end I'm like "huh, yep. You right." Most people think I'm fucking with them or something and keep trying to argue and I'm just like "yep, 100% agree".

Whenever I'm wrong. I'm more interested in the truth than my feelings.

I usually admit right away because the more you deny it the bigger the lie and the problem become

Pretty much daily. I will do it every time I know im wrong. Sometimes I'll be wrong and not realise it and look like a tube later, but thats life.

The only time I wont willingly admit it is if the other guy is a prick and it won't do to give them an inch.

There have definitely been times in my life I refused to admit it. It’s more common if people arguing against me are inflammatory: “LOL, you absolute moron! Take a look at this: (well-researched study)”

I think most recent was doubt towards the accusation Chet Faliszek opposed SKG. I still think it’s not quite as clear cut as being an industry shill, but the guy clearly expects more good faith from major publishers than the rest of us do (having worked for the best one).

All the fucking time. "I don't know" are the three most-important words. It's pretty much the key to everything, you can't improve without it.

On the Internet? Almost never, I like arguing.

With people I actually know? All the time.

Never (I rarely speak)

usually it takes me a while to contemplate what the other person just said and whether they're actually right. sadly by then they're mostly gone so i can't tell them.

I'm a slow learner, and I have come to compensate for this by gradually building out this tree of knowledge I can hang new little bits on. When I encounter a contradiction to something I had placed on the tree, I must redo the branches in the area. They need to be self-consistent or I am going to have a bad day.

So when I am challenged, I do probe a bit and ask the other party to prove or justify their stance. It's not motivated by any sort of pride in my own opinions, but rather the work it would take to sort things out again in my head. I don't want to do so unless I am clearly in the wrong.

But if I am proved wrong, I will certainly accept it. It can lead to new insights as I rework the tree.

It may even be that the slow-learning is actually due to this system I've developed? Like every piece of knowledge has to be processed into the context of my current understanding of things, and that takes time and effort.

I think this is perhaps the problem with AI? It makes all these little connections between things, but it doesn't have a big picture, which makes it frequently contradict itself. I couldn't live like that.