Being Wrong · 4:43am Mar 21st, 2017
My face when someone feeds me bullshit and expects me to believe them. Or I refuse to listen and double down on my own bullshit. It's tough to be certain sometimes.
"What if you're wrong?" It's a powerful question--and one that's not asked anywhere near enough, in my opinion. This question has real-world implications in basically every scenario. It's intended to inspire an individual to be more objective and open-minded when debating. More often than not, the answer is ignored because it forces the individual to scrutinize, and perhaps criticize, their own biases and poorly formulated conclusions.
Let's start off with a simple example. The other day, my roommate and I were discussing the brony convention, Everfree Northwest, and telling a friend about it. He told the friend quite explicitly, "Everfree Northwest was at the Doubletree for previous years, now it's at the Hilton."
I told my roommate, "It's the other way around. It used to be at the Hilton, now it's at the Doubletree."
Bear in mind that typically, my roommate ends up being right. In this, however, I was correct. I handed him my phone (he'd forgotten his), he looked it up, and he showed me, on the map, that Everfree Northwest is at the "Doubletree by the Hilton." Yes, the Doubletree Hotel, right? Erm, no. Somehow, this made him correct, even though Everfree Northwest hadn't taken place at the Doubletree by the Hilton prior to last year's, and had been taking place at the Hilton Convention Center prior to that. Even though he said that previous cons took place at the Doubletree and had moved to the Hilton, Everfree Northwest actually was at the Hilton Convention Center 2015 and prior and had moved to the Doubletree by the Hilton from 2016 onward. His information was genuinely flawed, as there had never been an occurrence of the convention where it took place at the Doubletree, then the Hilton. It's only ever been the other way around. The information was flawed, so I set out to correct it. That was all.
I knew fully well what he was saying, and I knew fully well that he was mistaken. I made a pleasant, non-abrasive correction. He doubled down on his erroneous information. Why?
Earlier today, someone posted a remark in a group about why they don't think they like women anymore, and are just going to give up on the gender in general as a potential interest. As this was a fairly nondescript opinion, not even containing anecdotes of these experiences, much less facts and statistics, that led to their conclusion, they were disagreed with en masse. They they posted another thread asking why they got downvoted to hell and accusing all of the dissenters of being feminists. Yes, because they disagreed with his vague, pointless assertion that women aren't worth the effort to date, they're instantly feminists. The dissenters from the first thread migrated here to tell him, "What are you on about? You didn't give us anything to go off of, you sound like an entitled MGTOW skrub." He then throws a bit of a fit, goes to a different group, and posts a thread asking for the general opinion of the group that dismissed him. There's some rumblings of discontent, then he links to the threads he created, which is where I come in. I read them and am like, "Oh, he's serious." I explain to him that the reason no one liked his assertions is because he gave them absolutely no reason to see his perspective, to which he angrily replies (after downvoting me), "I use logic and reason, that's why they should believe me." As if we're supposed to instantly know this guy's thought process.
Despite having no reason to argue with me, and me giving rational reasons for how to more appropriately address these topics in the future, he gets mad at me for trying to help him see another perspective. Why?
People in general, for whatever stupid reason, love to be right. They absolutely love it. Despite knowing what they said and what they thought, receiving new information that educates them and makes them smarter people as a consequence, and having an opportunity to simply say, "Cool, thanks for the education," and moving on with their lives... they decide to fight with me, argue that what they clearly said isn't what they actually said, and that somehow there was never any error on their part. As if it matters. As if being mistaken on something is somehow this taboo outcome that they cannot possibly allow into their paradigm of the world. As if only one person's thoughts and opinions actually matter, and everyone else is an obstacle to their rightness.
When I was a pre-teen, I aggressively protected my rightness in this respect. My reasoning was because my dad was almost always wrong, but never admitted it and always thought he was right, so I thought I had to be right all the time to not be like him. Silly me. I realized my error after a couple years of being an asshole to all of my friends and finally started admitting that I was wrong. Since then, I have relished in the fact that I am, at times, absolutely wrong sometimes, with no means of explaining away my error. And that's okay. No one is right 100% of the time, and wisdom is realizing when I'm wrong and admitting it so that I can be right next time. There's no point in stubbornly clinging to my beliefs if they're wrong.
In Bill Maher's religious documentary, Religulous, there's a point where he's discussing a man's reasoning behind why he believes in God. The man asks Bill, "What if you're wrong?" The context, of course, being: If he's wrong about Christianity, he'll burn in Hell for eternity. Bill then rebutts that question with, "What if you're wrong?" He just kind of looks at Bill for a moment, as if he'd never considered it. Had it all been for nothing? Then, the moment passes, and the question departs from his mind. He's not supposed to reflect on dogmatic thought systems like that.
It's at 8:34, right at the end of the video (and the uploader put in a really shitty ending slide, but whatever--the clip is there).
When provided the notion that Donald Trump is capable of positive change for America, a Hillary Clinton supporter scoffs. He is the worst possible thing that could happen to America, right? Sure, he's also capable of negative change... but his election to the presidency hasn't resulted in a global meltdown and, in all likelihood, will not result in a global meltdown. He's an egomaniac that is fully aware of how to game the media into talking about him incessantly and giving him free press, and yet is (shockingly) doing what he said he would do in regards to his political platform during the campaign, something that I had become so disillusioned with that I frankly had no faith in any future presidency to follow through on campaign promises, including his. Yet, despite Trump's attempts at bipartisan interest, Hillary Clinton supporters have already reached a conclusion: No matter what Donald Trump says or does, he is forever a stain upon humanity, and is incapable of making positive change.
This kind of close-minded bigotry, regardless of what the topic of conversation is, is actively harmful to the progression of the human race.
What's so bad about being wrong? What are we so afraid of? Does it emasculate us? Does it undermine our authority? Does it portray us as buffoons? Perhaps it does all of those things.
In regards to emasculation, an alpha male has to assert dominance, so to speak. In the wild, certain species of male monkeys fight, and the victor gets to have anal sex with the loser. Typically, the alpha male is the only monkey (or other wild animal) that gets to breed with the females. Humans don't have alpha males. It's a myth. The "alpha" status is a male trying to show a female that he is the most suitable mate, but males that don't directly compete with this other male over the same women are still able to breed. Monogamy doesn't work off of an alpha/beta system, it's finding a suitable mate and sticking with them, regardless of who comes and shakes their jiggly bits to tempt you. Thus, thinking that rightness equals mating suitability is absolutely flawed. Winning an argument isn't like beating the crap out of another animal to assert dominance and prove mating suitability. It's about learning and understanding, and ascribing the notion that "animal instinct" should be why you always argue with someone is a regressive idea. It's basically saying you shouldn't use reason, instead beating your chest and howling until the other animal leaves in disgust.
Undermining of authority? That's a student correcting their teacher, more or less. Someone who is apparently supposed to be infallibly smart isn't allowed to be wrong in front of their students. It's a dumb social construct that hinders the free exchange of ideas. A teacher's job is to teach their students; I think the best thing a teacher can do to teach their class properly is to exercise humility, but also constructive thinking. If a student challenges the teacher, I say the teacher rationalizes with the student and debates the student's point. If the student is right, I think the teacher should concede, admit the student is right, vocally, in front of the class, and move on with the lesson. I don't understand why there's this idea that conceding is like this walk of shame or some shit. The only people who care when they're either right or wrong are the pathetic losers that aren't interested in learning in the first place.
The biggest buffoons are the people who refuse to concede when they're clearly wrong. The easiest way to look like an idiot is to double down on something. If you can't listen to reason, you're a bigger idiot than the guy you're arguing with. Remember this when you're arguing.
Random quote of something I said on Reddit yesterday:
I will say that I tend to go with what's most likely, and the most likely causes for latency tend to not be tied directly to server performance (netcode would be lumped into network performance, but is still a server-side issue), but there is a distinct possibility that poor code optimization when doing things like bronto tail swings and having to calculate thousands of problems instantly could make a server performance issue result in increased latency for players. That is something that I hadn't really conceded initially. Thanks for talking it out with me, sir.
Nope, I don't expect you guys to understand the context, but I told the guy he was right here. It felt good to type those words, and the guy I said it to said I was a nice guy to talk to. :^)
In a YouTube comments section two days ago, I had a discussion with someone regarding Jim Crow Laws.
Hilariously enough, the Jim Crow Laws only existed in the Southern states. So, half the US has already been ahead of the curve. The people who have lived in Northern states since before the Civil War, where Jim Crow Laws were never even a thing, are still clinging to the notion that historical laws in states they've never even been to have somehow contributed to the current racially segregated political climate. I live in Seattle. Jim Crow Laws never happened here. Still, BLM has a foothold. The fuck is going on.
LMAO you might want to read up on history retard. Just because they didnt have "jim crow laws" does not mean there werent laws to keep people segregated. Another moron talking out of his ass.
We're not talking about some vague allusion to segregation in the Northern states. We're talking about the Jim Crow Laws. Destiny was using those as part of his argument, not vague allusions to segregation in the Northern states.
Please, cite the source for the laws which allowed for legal segregation of colored citizens in the Northern states in a similar manner to Jim Crow. Your clear disregard for facts (like this being about Jim Crow Laws, as those were the cited legislation) leads me to believe you've already shit the bed.
Read and weep you dumb cunt. http://inthesetimes.com/article/4124/jim_crow_in_the_north
Despite your clear intent on upsetting me, I accept your citation and consider it to have been informative and educational. Thank you for providing it. :)
As best I can tell, store owners were still allowed to be openly racist as such in the North, but it wasn't a legal mandate circa the Jim Crow Laws. I wasn't saying that segregation in the North didn't exist, more that the precedent of the Jim Crow Laws wasn't as on-the-nose as in the South. The article roughly supports this: While racism certainly existed in the North, it wasn't as blatant and widespread as in the South.
Regardless, Destiny was citing the Jim Crow Laws directly as the reason why Jon has to admit he's racist by association. Jon pointed out that the laws were relevant 50 years ago. I added that only half of the US adopted Jim Crow into law. The rest, I will admit, was flawed and non-factual. Thanks for the education, sir.
While not outright saying that I'm retarded and didn't have a point, my assertions based on the point I was trying to make were completely flawed. I owned this mistake, despite being called a dumb cunt, and decided to learn from the education, as opposed to being pissy about it.
... Wait, where was I going with this blog? 
In my experience, the people who are most hindered by their inability to recognize when they're wrong are those who can't remember the last time they said the words, "You're right." Just those two words, unaccompanied by others. The last time I said those words? Earlier today. Several times, in fact, to things that my coworkers told me. You know why I said that, right? Because I was wrong. I was absolutely, unequivocally, and unabashedly wrong on several things today. That's all right, though; I have learned and can share this new information moving forward. I am no super-genius, and even if I was, that doesn't mean I would know everything.
So, I ask all of you: When is the last time you said those two words? Can you remember? If you can't, give it a try. I promise it's not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. 
Just say those words to the next person you're talking to. Let them be right. Let you be wrong. Let you learn something. Then, remember that, even if you still think they're wrong, they're just as capable of being right as you are every single time, because they have their reasons for believing what they believe, too. Don't instantly assume that your logic is the best. Listen to their logic, see how they reason their beliefs, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
And I swear on Celestia's sweet flank, the first one of you to tell me I'm right in the comments section is going to get a spanking. 
I disagree that the alpha male thing is a myth in human society. It's actually thanks to Stefan Molyneux that I think this. He spoke of the difference in social and political views between the two. Simply put, because of the way they relate to women, alphas and betas tend to favor different economies, with alphas preferring socialism and betas preferring the free market. Sure, the barbarism of direct confrontation and physical domination is mainly gone, but the underlying driving forces -- increasing perception of suitability to compete for eggs -- are still there. It's just adapted to fit with modern society.
Shame, too, because I would have liked that spanking.
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Literally just learned this one today. Pretty crazy that I've been believing this falsehood for so ridiculously long. I know this applies to wolves, but it's where the original concept of alpha-beta relationships came from, and while humans can try to rationalize its existence, I have, as of today, adopted the viewpoint that alphas and betas don't really exist.
I am, however, more than willing to listen to a discussion on the topic.
Got a link to Stefan's video?
4465676 I can't seem to find where (maybe even a different video) he said explicitly that alphas like socialism and betas like the free market, but he touches on the subject in this video. I recommend watching the whole thing, but the really important part starts at 29:00.
In light of the information you provided, I can accept the idea that at an empirically, scientifically validated level, alphas and betas don't exist. But in the more informal, colloquial lingo, I think they have their use as a means of differentiating personality types based on the ability to attract mates. From there, patterns of political and economic views may well emerge. Who's to say there's nothing to learn from that?
I've been struggling a lot with this idea. Personally, I hate losing more than anything else. When someone corrects me, it often feels like a personal defeat of some kind, and I immediately get very defensive. This is especially more true when instead of kindly providing information, people say something like, "You ignorant shitlord, you are wrong and will never be right because you are a retard" or something like that. It's hard for me to keep my cool and not respond in the same manner. Even when I do keep it together, if often feels useless and not rewarding at all to do so.
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Note the quote in the blog of a conversation that I had with someone where they called me a retard first, then a cunt. Despite this, I acknowledged the validity of their citation and felt educated for it, so I gave credit where it was due, despite their apparent hostility.
I have this weird way of feeling like it's actually better to admit when someone else is right, no matter what they say, instead of at any point believing that I am baselessly right.