5 ms·

One heuristic for spotting when you might be wrong is that you hold a very uncommon belief. It COULD be that you are correct and the world is crazy, but its fa

One heuristic for spotting when you might be wrong is that you hold a very uncommon belief. It COULD be that you are correct and the world is crazy, but its far more likely that you are the one who is missing something. It's always worth stopping to double check when this happens. Perhaps more importantly, if you do happen to be right when everyone else is wrong its important to determine your goals. Is it more important to be right, or to be happy? If the answer is the latter then its sometimes best to just let people continue being wrong for the sake of being social. Nobody likes to be told they're wrong, so is "correctness" worth more than that person's feelings? Very oten it is not.

unsupp0rted 6mo ago
> sometimes best to just let people continue being wrong for the sake of being social There's almost no time when it's better to try to convince somebody they're wrong. It won't help you, and it won't work anyway, so it won't help them either. Sure if you're somebody's doctor, and even then you have to pick your battles.
hackingonempty 6mo ago
> Nobody likes to be told they're wrong I like to be told I'm wrong. While it is true that I am a nobody it means I'm about to learn something.
- mapontosevenths 6mo ago
  > I like to be told I'm wrong. I believe you, but in my own experience I've met more people who say this than who mean this. Usually it's situational. People might genuinely like to be wrong when the novelty is fun or useful, for example in lab work or in low stakes classwork. However, they despise it with politics, their job, or anything else that might have actual consequences in their lives.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - bena 6mo ago
    A lot of people believe this about themselves, but yes, like you suspect, they don't mean it when it counts.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- fifticon 6mo ago
  I don't really think you like it, but maybe you will like this.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
Fricken 6mo ago
I think I can speak for most people with niche subjects of interest when I say that the commonly held beliefs on said niche subject tend to be pretty bad.
em-bee 6mo ago
the thing with uncommon beliefs is not that they are likely wrong. but that digging in your heels is surely going to fail, regardless of who is actually right. so your suggested response is the right approach, but it doesn't end there. you can try find a common belief and build up your argument from there. peoples opinions can be changed if you take the time to learn how their opinions are formed and present them with the opportunity to consider alternative ideas. ideally in such a way that they discover the truth on their own. a key component is that unity enables change. it is better to be wrong but united, than right and divided. if we are united (and thus stay friends) then we can learn from being wrong and change direction. if we are divided then changing direction is difficult.
- sublinear 6mo ago
  I think there are also different definitions of "digging in your heels". What most people do is just whine and repeat themselves because they don't understand all the ways they're being misunderstood. They lack self-awareness because they lack sufficient experience hearing and digesting the arguments from the other sides. This is a missed opportunity. What people should do instead is leverage their self-awareness once they have the spotlight and "magically know" which concerns to address when they are given that brief window of rebuttal. It's hard to get attention, so they must strike when the iron is hot. It takes a lot of experience, and most never get to that level. Repetition signals to everyone else they don't really know what they're talking about. The majority of the audience may actually be on your side agreeing with you, but they won't stick their neck out for the truth if they know they're less informed and less experienced than you, yet even you still failed. They have no chance to do any better, so they just shut the fuck up. Everyone languishes. Your point is noted, but not winning. All you did was paint a target on your back for the next time you say anything. People would rather be winning than right. Agreeing with you once doesn't mean they side with you.
Barrin92 6mo ago
>One heuristic for spotting when you might be wrong is that you hold a very uncommon belief. this is only the case in a 'wisdom of the crowd' world where people hold uncorrelated, authentic, self-formed opinions. If you're in a world of mass opinion and mania where ideas spread virally it ceases to be an indicator. In that environment its not truth that determined popularity of a belief, but how transmittable they are. In a world where gigantic companies produce sociality being anti-social in the most literal sense is a very real survival and truth-finding strategy. And of course it's more important to be right than happy. Happiness decoupled from truth is nihilism. If that's the goal start doing heroin at ten in the morning and retreat into the VR world of your choice. As Cormac McCarthy said in his last book: “You would give up your dreams in order to escape your nightmares and I would not. I think it's a bad bargain.”
- mapontosevenths 6mo ago
  > If you're in a world of mass opinion and mania where ideas spread virally it ceases to be an indicator. Not really. It continues to be an indicator, just a less reliable one. As I said, it's one heuristic. It increases your probability of being right more than it decreases it, but it isn't an absolute rule. Fundamentally, science itself relies on this heuristic to some extent. The idea that an experiment be reproducible is essentially the idea that the majority of testers should agree on observed reality. You just have to be careful not to conflate opinion with observed fact, or to treat it as more than a heuristic evaluator. > Happiness decoupled from truth is nihilism. Not at all. You do not need to be correct to be happy, and there is no correlation at all between your ability to correctly understand the world and your capacity (or worthiness) to experience joy or to help others experience it. You are allowed to be wrong and happy, or apathetic and happy, or ignorant and happy, or even nihilistic and happy. > If that's the goal start doing heroin at ten in the morning and retreat into the VR world of your choice. There's more than one type of happiness. The kind you describe is hedonic. The other type is referred to as Eudamonic, and it comes from connection, service, and a sense of purpose. You'll never get to experience the second type if other people don't want to be around you because you've decided that your own narrow perspective is the One True Perspective (TM). Don't get me wrong, I reject post-modernity and the horrifying idea that there is no objective truth. I just also reject the idea that any of us are valid arbiters of that truth, or that we must know the truth before being allowed to experience happiness.
keybored 6mo ago
I’m going to ignore the whole socially-agreeable aspect. Take a thousand subjects. I’m going to be wrong about 990 of them. Because I know just enough about it to think I might have a clue. You could probably read up on something for five hours and have a better opinion on it than most people that you meet. How many things are just passively received opinion? And what kind of signal is that? Oh no, all the Jacks and Jones disagree with me. On the other hand there are some cases where you can go down some dark rabbit hole and gain false knowledge and education. Maybe studying political science or something.
aforwardslash 6mo ago
> Is it more important to be right, or to be happy? Im going out on a limb here, but I'd say intelligent people will tell you - without a doubt - being right. Because being happy is a perception and always a transitive state. There's nothing holding you from being both right and happy. > Nobody likes to be told they're wrong Thats actually a southern european way of looking at things; Its a cultural trace that varies a lot by region. Pointing flaws in plans is actually something I saw as worthy of an appraisal in Germany. Also, I always tell people when I think they are wrong. I no longer insist or argue, just point out what lead me to the conclusion; you don't want to be in the blast radius of a deaf manager, an incompetent colleague or a delusional partner. Win-win.
nvlled 6mo ago
Ever heard of tribalism and echo chambers? Wrongness being a function of number of dissidents is a terrible heuristic, in contrast to determining the lies and falsehood based on the soundness of the argument or logic. Also, when a population group is large enough (e.g. entire world), it's quite likely a crazily-held belief is shared by other people, or people who would at least nod in agreement.

unsupp0rted 6mo ago

> sometimes best to just let people continue being wrong for the sake of being social There's almost no time when it's better to try to convince somebody they're wrong. It won't help you, and it won't work anyway, so it won't help them either. Sure if you're somebody's doctor, and even then you have to pick your battles.

hackingonempty 6mo ago

> Nobody likes to be told they're wrong I like to be told I'm wrong. While it is true that I am a nobody it means I'm about to learn something.

mapontosevenths 6mo ago
> I like to be told I'm wrong. I believe you, but in my own experience I've met more people who say this than who mean this. Usually it's situational. People might genuinely like to be wrong when the novelty is fun or useful, for example in lab work or in low stakes classwork. However, they despise it with politics, their job, or anything else that might have actual consequences in their lives.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- bena 6mo ago
  A lot of people believe this about themselves, but yes, like you suspect, they don't mean it when it counts.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
fifticon 6mo ago
I don't really think you like it, but maybe you will like this.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

Fricken 6mo ago

I think I can speak for most people with niche subjects of interest when I say that the commonly held beliefs on said niche subject tend to be pretty bad.

em-bee 6mo ago

the thing with uncommon beliefs is not that they are likely wrong. but that digging in your heels is surely going to fail, regardless of who is actually right. so your suggested response is the right approach, but it doesn't end there. you can try find a common belief and build up your argument from there. peoples opinions can be changed if you take the time to learn how their opinions are formed and present them with the opportunity to consider alternative ideas. ideally in such a way that they discover the truth on their own. a key component is that unity enables change. it is better to be wrong but united, than right and divided. if we are united (and thus stay friends) then we can learn from being wrong and change direction. if we are divided then changing direction is difficult.

sublinear 6mo ago
I think there are also different definitions of "digging in your heels". What most people do is just whine and repeat themselves because they don't understand all the ways they're being misunderstood. They lack self-awareness because they lack sufficient experience hearing and digesting the arguments from the other sides. This is a missed opportunity. What people should do instead is leverage their self-awareness once they have the spotlight and "magically know" which concerns to address when they are given that brief window of rebuttal. It's hard to get attention, so they must strike when the iron is hot. It takes a lot of experience, and most never get to that level. Repetition signals to everyone else they don't really know what they're talking about. The majority of the audience may actually be on your side agreeing with you, but they won't stick their neck out for the truth if they know they're less informed and less experienced than you, yet even you still failed. They have no chance to do any better, so they just shut the fuck up. Everyone languishes. Your point is noted, but not winning. All you did was paint a target on your back for the next time you say anything. People would rather be winning than right. Agreeing with you once doesn't mean they side with you.

Barrin92 6mo ago

>One heuristic for spotting when you might be wrong is that you hold a very uncommon belief. this is only the case in a 'wisdom of the crowd' world where people hold uncorrelated, authentic, self-formed opinions. If you're in a world of mass opinion and mania where ideas spread virally it ceases to be an indicator. In that environment its not truth that determined popularity of a belief, but how transmittable they are. In a world where gigantic companies produce sociality being anti-social in the most literal sense is a very real survival and truth-finding strategy. And of course it's more important to be right than happy. Happiness decoupled from truth is nihilism. If that's the goal start doing heroin at ten in the morning and retreat into the VR world of your choice. As Cormac McCarthy said in his last book: “You would give up your dreams in order to escape your nightmares and I would not. I think it's a bad bargain.”

mapontosevenths 6mo ago
> If you're in a world of mass opinion and mania where ideas spread virally it ceases to be an indicator. Not really. It continues to be an indicator, just a less reliable one. As I said, it's one heuristic. It increases your probability of being right more than it decreases it, but it isn't an absolute rule. Fundamentally, science itself relies on this heuristic to some extent. The idea that an experiment be reproducible is essentially the idea that the majority of testers should agree on observed reality. You just have to be careful not to conflate opinion with observed fact, or to treat it as more than a heuristic evaluator. > Happiness decoupled from truth is nihilism. Not at all. You do not need to be correct to be happy, and there is no correlation at all between your ability to correctly understand the world and your capacity (or worthiness) to experience joy or to help others experience it. You are allowed to be wrong and happy, or apathetic and happy, or ignorant and happy, or even nihilistic and happy. > If that's the goal start doing heroin at ten in the morning and retreat into the VR world of your choice. There's more than one type of happiness. The kind you describe is hedonic. The other type is referred to as Eudamonic, and it comes from connection, service, and a sense of purpose. You'll never get to experience the second type if other people don't want to be around you because you've decided that your own narrow perspective is the One True Perspective (TM). Don't get me wrong, I reject post-modernity and the horrifying idea that there is no objective truth. I just also reject the idea that any of us are valid arbiters of that truth, or that we must know the truth before being allowed to experience happiness.

keybored 6mo ago

I’m going to ignore the whole socially-agreeable aspect. Take a thousand subjects. I’m going to be wrong about 990 of them. Because I know just enough about it to think I might have a clue. You could probably read up on something for five hours and have a better opinion on it than most people that you meet. How many things are just passively received opinion? And what kind of signal is that? Oh no, all the Jacks and Jones disagree with me. On the other hand there are some cases where you can go down some dark rabbit hole and gain false knowledge and education. Maybe studying political science or something.

aforwardslash 6mo ago

> Is it more important to be right, or to be happy? Im going out on a limb here, but I'd say intelligent people will tell you - without a doubt - being right. Because being happy is a perception and always a transitive state. There's nothing holding you from being both right and happy. > Nobody likes to be told they're wrong Thats actually a southern european way of looking at things; Its a cultural trace that varies a lot by region. Pointing flaws in plans is actually something I saw as worthy of an appraisal in Germany. Also, I always tell people when I think they are wrong. I no longer insist or argue, just point out what lead me to the conclusion; you don't want to be in the blast radius of a deaf manager, an incompetent colleague or a delusional partner. Win-win.

nvlled 6mo ago

Ever heard of tribalism and echo chambers? Wrongness being a function of number of dissidents is a terrible heuristic, in contrast to determining the lies and falsehood based on the soundness of the argument or logic. Also, when a population group is large enough (e.g. entire world), it's quite likely a crazily-held belief is shared by other people, or people who would at least nod in agreement.