Three ways to be wrong:
Being factually incorrect as a mistake.
Repeating lies that you believe are true.
Being wrong on purpose. Lying.
Three ways to be right:
Stating true information or facts.
Stating useful ideas or wisdom.
Admitting that you do not know.
I think people don't like to say they don't know, when in many cases, it is the right reply. What happens after we die? idk How did the universe come into being? idk How did the first life forms come into being? idk Is my religion really the one true religion? idk We stand a chance of knowing the right answer to 2 and 3 but 1 and 4 will probably be debated for a long time to come.
I think from an evolutionary standpoint, the 3 ways of being wrong can be right because they state useful ideas. You go out to pick berries from the bushes. You hear a nearby rustling and tell yourself it's a predator so you run away with your collected berries. Probably just the wind or a cute bunny. You tell others what happened, either to protect them or to scare them from gathering berries from your favorite bush. It's useful for people in general to tell themselves its a predator because if they don't, some percentage will die. It's useful to tell fellow tribe members about the supposed predator since they help you survive in their joint efforts with your tribe. It's useful to not have other tribes snooping around your bountiful berry bush so you lie to them by exaggerating the danger.
Being wrong in your answer to your partner's question, "do I look good in this outfit?" could be useful in preventing an argument or hurt feelings. Might be a useful idea to reply, "I think you look good in almost anything! If this outfit makes you feel good about yourself then I think it's a good choice!"
Other times it might be useful to be wrong is when the authorities come to your door to ask if you are harboring any (fill in the blank). I'm thinking back to WWII. Or if someone is dying (we all are, every day, we just don't like to think about it), or if they lost a loved one, or if they are suffering from some debilitating existential angst, anxiety, or anguish - there are probably wrong things that can be said that are useful ideas to cope with the situation. I think I'd generally rather know the truth than a useful fiction, but there may be some cases where I'd rather be blissfully ignorant or incorrect.
Just a ramble inspired by your awesome post! :) I agree with what you wrote; I just used it as a starting point to write down whatever came to mind in a stream of conscious kind of way.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
I'm happy you wrote all that, because it was all in my head too.
I also intentionally didn't write "The Three Ways."
Just "three ways." There could indeed be more, as well as combinations of any.
The last point of being right is something I feel some people find it impossible to do. It's almost hilarious the lies they tell themselves when never admitting they just frankly didn't know something. I mean think about it. The odds of you not knowing something and someone else knowing about it is really, really not that small. You can try and argue and go around it as much as you want but it won't make you look any smarter than just admitting you were wrong and you didn't know. Maybe people need to praise when others admit that more often so they can save everyone some time and just do that to begin with next time.
Yeah, I must have have been pretty young when I thought, "I love being wrong because next time, I'll be right."
It seems pretty natural to me to just let ideas and information flow through me, without being all that possessive about any singular fact or idea. I couldn't imagine feeling so incredibly right that I have to condemn someone else for being so incredibly wrong.
I figure an open-minded discussion is just a lot more fun and educational too. Just an exchange of perspectives. When someone else doesn't play along, and they wanna be a bit more forceful and coercive, I'm just lucky I'm charismatic enough to deflect it most of the time and keep things on good terms.
I used to enjoy those discussions, I think downvote drama has gotten to me lately where my patience drops real quick when it comes to things like that and I just see things in a dark light and think how insignificant and a waste of time everything is. I also get very vulgar when bullshitters try to bullshit their way out of taking responsibility. Maybe I need a vacation.
I think most people are very aware that things like responsibility, accountability, and honesty... are very inconvenient and simply detrimental to have.
Anyone lacking those things is better off.
Even to the point that a person who is forceful and coercive is better off than a person who is not.
All of those things sound nice, but in practice, anyone with them is just carrying more ethical baggage, and all it does is limit them. Sure, they get to feel good about themselves for it, but often, there's a way out, such as literally just running away, or just getting someone else to take the blame.
The sort of world we live in is an evolutionary one, where ethics and morality are objectively meaningless, and instead, it is raw profit, surviving, and thriving that matter.
Thriving not in the cute PAL sense of having enough for everyone, but thriving like a swarm of flies on a corpse.
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