Why most people get it wrong?

  • 🔧 Site instability resolved. You can report double-posts and broken attachments. For bigger issues, use the Technical Grievances thread.
    🇵🇦 Nuestro primer dominio localizado está en español en kiwifarms.pa. Our first localized domain is on Spanish on kiwifarms.pa.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Destacado
Smart Turtle

Smart Turtle

I committed a felony
kiwifarms.net
Registrado
7 de Sep, 2025
You see it every single day. Someone posts a take about economics, science, or whatever it is. It is mathematically, demonstrably, Obviously, 100% false. Someone else replies with a polite correction and a source.

Does the first person say, "Oh wow, my bad, I learned something today"? No. They double down, move the goalposts, or insult the person correcting them.

I’ve been trying to figure out why people are so aggressively, objectively wrong about stuff, and I think it might boil down to this: Nobody is actually trying to find the truth anymore. We are just playing a game of "Don't Lose The Argument."

For those who haven't read it, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave imagines prisoners chained in a dark cave their whole lives. They watch shadows projected on a wall and think the shadows are reality. When one prisoner is freed, goes outside, and sees the sun (actual objective truth), he comes back to tell the others. But the prisoners don't believe him. In fact, they get angry and want to attack him, because the truth threatens their entire worldview.

When the freed prisoner steps outside, the sun physically hurts his eyes. Truth is the same way, admitting you are wrong causes literal psychological pain (cognitive dissonance). Because there are no real-world consequences for being wrong online, people choose to stay in the dark. It’s easier to block the person correcting you than to let the light hurt your ego.
 
If people admitted they were wrong about one thing they risk having to admit they were wrong about other things. On top of that, almost everything has been a cult so admitting they're wrong means they risk being excommunicated by their "friends" and they know they wont ever be accepted by opposing groups.
 
Smart Turtle dijo:
Someone else replies with a polite correction and a source.

Does the first person say, "Oh wow, my bad, I learned something today"? No. They double down, move the goalposts, or insult the person correcting them.
Presiona para expandir...
But how do you know the person who replies is correct? Two people can be wrong
 
Smart Turtle dijo:
You see it every single day. Someone posts a take about economics, science, or whatever it is. It is mathematically, demonstrably, Obviously, 100% false. Someone else replies with a polite correction and a source.

Does the first person say, "Oh wow, my bad, I learned something today"? No. They double down, move the goalposts, or insult the person correcting them.
Presiona para expandir...
the incomprehensible whoajack
Fishnumm dijo:
most people are fucked up and their shits all tarded
Presiona para expandir...
the ai-generated gigachad
 
It's an ego thing. A lot of people seem to have it in their heads that it's an insurmountable loss of face if they're ever wrong (which is silly, since everybody is wrong) and so they'll just dig deeper, throw insults, or try to change the subject, even if doing so makes them look more retarded than just saying "my bad". This creates a feedback loop where "nobody else apologises so neither can I" - lo and behold, the spiritual Indian is born.
 
Smart Turtle dijo:
I’ve been trying to figure out why people are so aggressively, objectively wrong about stuff
Presiona para expandir...

Using these devices and apps in the narcissus pool manner that people do is an infantilized habit in the first place. Are you willing to lower your expectations?
 
Última edición:
As others have said, it stems from insecurity. There is also the real risk of being turned into your groups scapegoat if you admit to being wrong even once. No, it's not healthy behavior and it's one of the reasons we have taken so long to evolve as a society.
 
XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG dijo:
@Smart Turtle you cannot just make the correct observation that people have demonstrably false takes and then follow it up with Plato's cave allegory
is this supposed to be bait specifically targeted at people who know their shit when it comes to philosophy?
Presiona para expandir...

Imagine you spend your whole life locked in a room, staring at a TV. You have never looked away from the screen.

On the TV, there is a picture of an apple. Because you have never been outside, you think an apple is just a flat, glowing picture on a screen.

One day, you finally go outside. You find a real apple on a tree. You bite it. It is crunchy and sweet! You realize the TV apple was just a fake picture. The real world is very real

You run back inside to tell your friends. "Guys, apples are crunchy and sweet! Come outside!"

But your friends get mad. "No!" they say. "Apples are flat and glow. We are looking at the TV right now, so we know we are right." They refuse to go outside.
 
Smart Turtle dijo:
Imagine you spend your whole life locked in a room, staring at a TV. You have never looked away from the screen.

On the TV, there is a picture of an apple. Because you have never been outside, you think an apple is just a flat, glowing picture on a screen.

One day, you finally go outside. You find a real apple on a tree. You bite it. It is crunchy and sweet! You realize the TV apple was just a fake picture. The real world is very real

You run back inside to tell your friends. "Guys, apples are crunchy and sweet! Come outside!"

But your friends get mad. "No!" they say. "Apples are flat and glow. We are looking at the TV right now, so we know we are right." They refuse to go outside.
Presiona para expandir...
I know what Plato's cave allegory is
I'm just saying Plato is an example of being blatantly false, and by extension, so is taking him seriously
 
Destacado
Debes iniciar sesión o registrarte para responder aquí.
Atrás
Top Abajo