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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[–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

I despise being wrong, so I will readily admit it and change my position as soon as it's clear.

One hack I use sometimes is suffixing 'i could be wrong' to the end of sentences when I'm not sure so that I'm already halfway there and can easily switch my opinion.

This comes with the side effect of being very hard to convince otherwise when I'm quite sure I'm right.

In real life, I often can't be bothered debating people especially when it's something trivial or when I don't care about them enough to help them see the error of their ways, so I'll concede with a 'maybe' just to move on from it.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    You could also prefix something you're not fully sure about with "From what I understand". That lets you pivot to being wrong if the other person presents better facts, but also is a more positive if your position remains solid.

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