Afternoon Inquisition

AI: Why everyone else is wrong

Ugh. I have a headache. I’m so sick of everyone else being wrong. Even more, I’m so sick of everyone not realizing that I’m always right.

Excuse me, but why the hell would I SAY SOMETHING if it were wrong? Why would I write it for everyone to see? Why would I put it out there to be criticized where I would look bad? Why would I misinform people?

I wouldn’t do those things. Because being wrong is awful. It’s probably the very worst thing you can be. I’m very fortunate to be me. Because other people in the world, namely everyone, are wrong a lot. They’re wrong probably every day. I can’t even imagine how awful that must be… to be wrong. I mean, sometimes I change my mind, but usually that’s because the facts changed, not because I was wrong to begin with. It may look like the facts were there the whole time, but if it looks like that to you, you’re just seeing it wrong. Like remember the time that God meticulously layered fossils to match what we would later think was “proof” that he didn’t exist in an attempt to test our faith? It’s like that. Sometimes facts change. Retroactively. That really happens. It’s a fact. A forever fact, not one of those changey facts.

But what’s especially frustrating is when people just refuse to understand how right I am. If I were wrong, I’d tell you. I’d know because I know lots of right things, so if you were right that I was wrong, I would know it. And I don’t know it. Because IT’S NOT TRUE. So stop trying to correct me.

Now, I’m sure you think you’re right about something. Or you think someone else is wrong about something. Or maybe you had to re-assess your rightness recently. It happens… the last one less that the first two, but sometimes that happens, too.

How do you feel about being wrong? Do you lie and say things like “I like being wrong. It’s how I learn.”? Do you mean that? Because I can imagine what it must feel like to be wrong, and I imagine it probably feels bad. Do you ever meet people who think they’re right like me but are actually nothing like me and are wrong a lot? How do you deal with them? Are you right like me? What’s the wrongest thing you’ve thought you were right about?

The Afternoon Inquisition (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Skepchick community. Look for it to appear Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3pm ET.

Elyse

Elyse MoFo Anders is the bad ass behind forming the Women Thinking, inc and the superhero who launched the Hug Me! I'm Vaccinated campaign as well as podcaster emeritus, writer, slacktivist extraordinaire, cancer survivor and sometimes runs marathons for charity. You probably think she's awesome so you follow her on twitter.

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17 Comments

  1. I really despise being wrong but then again that’s why I prefer the grey area. I might not be right but at least I’m not wrong.

    1. I have no idea what that means. You are clearly wrong. You either enjoy or hate being wrong. Please finish the decision that I have already begun making for you.

      YOU’RE WELCOME.

  2. I’m one of those obnoxious arrogant people who is usually right, so of course I HATE being wrong. But I felt that accepting criticism/correction with grace is an AMAZING character trait, so I decided to learn it. I’m still working on it. I genuinely enjoy learning new things when my friends correct me, and I think having a semblance of humbleness and owning up to my mistakes makes me even more awesome than I was before, which is really the whole point of self-improvement, right? In all good fun, I am at least mostly serious. It’s just too bad I can’t be an expert on ALL THE THINGS.

  3. I hate being wrong so I take the easy route and mainly debate people who I know are wrong due to just plain ignorance. I’m also lazy, which means I just give up when I have to research why I’m right.

  4. I love being right but I hate being wrong more. Because I like having research to back up my rightness, I often run into the problem of gathering facts to support my position only to find out the facts make me wrong. But at least I’m right for the next argument….

  5. It depends on what the issue is I may be wrong about.
    If it’s something trivial, I brush it off.
    Otherwise, it’s troubling, especially if it involves other people.

    I know I’m probably wrong in so many ways.
    It is when I have other people’s facts that I feel I am right.

  6. You know this will be quoted by some freedom fighter as *proof!* that feminists are crazy ideologues trying to change factual-facts into lady-facts.

    I can’t be wrong about that one.

  7. I can relate. Sometimes I think to myself: “What if I just think I’m right about X but I’m actually completely wrong? How would I know?”. But then I remember that I’m a super genius and that I’m only ever wrong about things I’m not completely sure about. Sorry I can’t really help you with understanding how it feels to be wrong.

  8. I see nothing wrong with endeavoring to be right. I even coined an improvement on the rather silly term “Bright.” My version was “B-Right” (pronounced “Be Right”) to describe someone who made a positive effort to eliminate his or her incorrect beliefs. It didn’t catch on but but then, thankfully, neither did “Bright.”

  9. I dislike being wrong, but I don’t mind admitting it. To most people. You know that one person who you just really hate being wrong in front of? That person sucks. But I sure do take a couple more seconds to speak in front of them.

    It’s kind of easier to tell someone I was wrong rather than right, though. It feels like piling on if you already had an argument and then looked up the info, realized you were right (naturally) and want to continue the “discussion”.

  10. “What’s the wrongest thing you’ve thought you were right about?”
    Recently I had to have a colonoscopy and due to my ITP I had to have 4 bags of platelets.
    The crossmatch showed my blood type to be A positive.
    My WHOLE life I thought (no KNEW) I was O Pos – and get this, I WORKED in a transfusion lab!!
    Potential candidate for the Darwin awards, that’s me. The shame, the shame.

  11. Elyse, BTW include me as a member of the bloody bum club along with you and Marilove.
    Awesome stuff! Yep, you haven’t lived til you’ve had that every day for weeks on end.

  12. I’m often wrong in how I feel about things, but almost never wrong about the conclusions I’m drawing from the facts. As soon as I discover that I’m wrong, I change my mind. I don’t change my wrong feelings though. Case in point, I love the TV series “Dexter”. I know that there are plenty of facts supporting the idea that what Dexter does is wrong, but when I see an episode where someone who has done and clearly would continue to do terribly wrong things, then see good old Dex come along and turn the bad guy into dripping chunks of bloody meat, I feel perversely uplifted. Sometimes, I’ve been wrong about being wrong. Someone convinced me by distorting the facts that I was wrong about something, but then I double checked and found I was right all along.

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