I've never understood why people go along with things they disagree about. It seems people often beat a good argument with the threat of retribution if we dont play along. Doesnt sound like a recipe for well thought out actions or incentives.
And because I know I might be wrong even though I don't think I am, I've been mistaken about that before, that's literally what being wrong is. Sometimes when I'm wrong I am not going to realize it for days/weeks/months. So why fight it to the death? Only when the consequences seem especially vital, not every damn time!
I am still not advocating pretending to think something you don't. You do not have to pretend you agree with the other person or lie about what you think. But I am advocating some humility. (I definitely do not always exhibit it myself, for anyone reading this who knows me; I do consider it one of my faults; I am writing here as a reminder for myself too).
I actually think it's important to set up a culture where everyone doesn't have to agree -- we all acknowledge we will sometimes embark on a course of affairs that everyone doesn't agree with, and you don't need to pretend you agree. People will disagree, and sometimes we still need to move forward. I actually fully agree that a culture where people have to pretend to agree in order to move forward is dishonest and harmful. And that's generally the real-world outcome of expecting nobody ever to "go along" with something they disagree with.
I like this angle, I'll try to observe if it's actually happening in my context :)
The cost of choosing washing machine A is that it breaks at some distant time. The cost of arguing about washing machines is wasting an hour every week driving to a laundromat and paying $10 a wash, plus the hard-to-quantify strain on your relationship, for an argument you might not even win. In this situation, the hidden third option of dragging out a conflict that you might not even win could end up more costly than choosing a bad option, even if you're right.
In software this happens a lot. You burn opportunity cost trying to argue for a perfect solution instead of aligning behind a flawed solution.
If only they were all that way.
If someone tells me their blender is the best washing machine, this may turn into a painful conversation. A long one. Possibly an embarrassing one. But I’m here for it. That’s a fucking blender, and I’m not going to call it a washing machine even if that’s the last decision I make here.
It would be great if all of these situations were as sane as picking between two valid options. Sometimes there’s a valid one, and, well, pick your expletives for the other one.
In software this happens a lot. Entire teams spinning plates because someone confused authority with experience.
I fully agree that in a romantic relationship there is far more at stake than any single choice.
But I've found the professional world to work far differently. For starters people only stick around jobs an average of 18 months (whereas marriages get about 7 yrs). And there is far more at stake to having your choice selected in an argument at work -- promotions and subsequent pay increases are worth 10s-100s of thousand. Submissive people are frequently looked over for promotion and may miss >5 years of promoted working years.
perfection was never in the discussion, but good (ie high quality) is. When I see someone arguing for a bad solution (ie both high risk & total cost of ownership expensive) it's there's actually a lot on the line. This risk factor scales with the size/brand of the business. Look at the pie in the face one company wears[1] for a security breach, whereas another gets to demonstrate their security forward posture[2]. The former likely has lost millions to a ~million dollar choice[3]. Whereas the latter has increased their brand value to the same choice.
But the person who argues without end for what they think is right is often ostracized and disparaged. This is something very broken in American culture.
[1]: https://www.twilio.com/blog/august-2022-social-engineering-a...
[2]: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cloudflare-em...
[3]: 8k workers by $125 -- yubikey + cost of training ~$1M .
Sometimes the worst case outcome isn’t very bad and will be quickly uncovered.
Sometimes you acknowledge that though you’re sure you’re right, there’s the possibility that you are not.
One thing I dont understand is why American culture is such that it's better to play nice to the group detriment than to work hard to everyone's benefit? It's like people would rather smile on a sinking ship than suffer the journey to excellence.
[1]: for example I've warned my employer once that an implementation was brutally inefficient and will cost both opex and velocity, but they told me "what's your solution" to which I could only reply "give me a week to design it like you gave the principal engineer and I'll give you a better solution". They laughed and said they dont have a month. The choice has cost the business >$1M in excess PaaS fees and has had multiple subsequent major projects to attempt to remediate the costs (granted the opex costs have come down significantly since multiple rounds of refinement). But the point still stands -- I roughly knew a better path to not need 6+ months of refinement, and save >$1M in opex overspend, but they wouldn't spare the time and disparaged me for not being a team player.
When you know you know better it's best not to submit. Perhaps it's worth realizing it's a bad culture though.
It especially works better when there's too much ambiguity to proceed aggressively in any direction no matter how confident you are.
It usually more accurately reflects the group's appetite for risk, creates psychological safety, and reduces the social costs of failure.
People also understand that "correctness" is often subjective and not boolean in nature, so insisting their opinion is in all ways the most correct would be silly.