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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[–] 2 points 3 months ago

What can be also hard is to admit that you don't know, but that can be turned into a good thing by admitting your ignorance and either listening to someone's reasoning, or together try to find an answer. Especially with kids, part of being a parent was learning with them as you seeked out answers to a simple question that you weren't sure about. A subset of the XKCD Ten Thousand. Being right or appearing to know something isn't always as good as the journey to get to the actual facts.

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