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Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

> Because conversation doesn't (and shouldn't) work like that.

It often does.

Not everyone is like you.

Not everyone wants the same things from a conversation as you.

I agree that a lot of times, the veracity of these details don't matter. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, but: In my experience, there is a strong correlation between those who do not like being fact checked in these social situations, and those who make factually incorrect statements when it clearly matters (e.g. accusing someone of poor behavior, business transactions, etc).

We may be in the minority, but some of us do care to know whether you can be trusted. It's one thing to be up front and speak tentatively, and be open that you've gotten details wrong. It's another to give a fantastic narrative that happens to be full of incorrect details, and then complain when someone points it out.

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Many shades of grey here.

If someone is telling you a fantastic story about their background in hopes to con you, obviously fact checking is useful.

If someone is simply weaving an interesting narrative, fact checking is at best a distraction, and often just a way for someone to “well actually” themselves into the spotlight.

Whether that’s justified is a question that has no absolute answers, but for most people the conversation is the fun part. (Not me, but I’m an anti-social loner and I have no interest in making other people more unhappy than is necessary.)

Indeed, many shades of grey.

The problematic behavior I speak of is not of someone trying to con me, but of someone who simply is not reliable with details when it does matter. I'm not implying any malicious intent.

I love a fantastic narrative, and am quite OK with it being riddled with inaccuracies. I just treat the whole story as fiction, and that should be fine. What worries me is that I have observed most of the other listeners do not treat it as fiction. Almost every week I get a story retold to me as if it is fact. Do people not understand the "telephone" game? Almost every week someone comes to me and says "John told me last week that ..." and treat it as factual.

Exactly. And I'd argue that the vast majority of conversations are of the second type, not the first type. And if all you want/have are the first type, I think you need to experience more of the second type.

But using the "true details" (who cares if it's Ethan Hawk or Tom Cruise or whoever in Gattaca when you're discussing the relevance of the genetic engineering aspects of it) as a measure of how trustworthy someone is? That's just ridiculous to me, especially because for most conversations it doesn't matter.

> But using the "true details" (who cares if it's Ethan Hawk or Tom Cruise or whoever in Gattaca when you're discussing the relevance of the genetic engineering aspects of it) as a measure of how trustworthy someone is? That's just ridiculous to me,

It is ridiculous, and not something I was advocating.

The signal is not in whether their story is riddled with inaccuracies, but whether they get upset when questioned about it, and whether they are willing to simply say "Yeah I probably got some of the details wrong."

Of course, if someone questions every detail of the story, it kills the story. The storyteller merely needs to say "Yeah, some of the details are probably off" .

Yeah, I misread. But it is often rude and disrupting the conversation, though it can be done tactfully "Oh, I believe it was Ethan Hawke actually". It can also open up room for more conversation "No, I'm pretty sure it was Tom Cruise", where the debate of it becomes the conversation. Which is fine, and still doesn't say anything to me about the trustworthiness of the person who was telling the story. Nor does it necessarily imply they need to be fact checked on Google right now; again, it's tangential to the overarching part of the conversation. I still think using that single measure as a measure of trustworthiness is ridiculous. Especially in a conversation that's not deep.

> The storyteller merely needs to say "Yeah, some of the details are probably off" .

I feel this is an unwritten rule of conversation in general. It certainly is amongst my friend groups, even recounting stories where we were all present. It obviously wouldn't work for debates, or if you were discussing things like political policy, but most conversations don't fall into those types of things. Just sitting around shooting the shit.

> I feel this is an unwritten rule of conversation in general.

There is a bit of cognitive dissonance that I observe.

It indeed is an unwritten rule. Most people agree with this rule.

Yet wait a while after the conversation, and people who listened treat the story as a lot more factual than what that rule implies, and more than they themselves believed it in the moment. The only antidote I have seen to prevent this transformation is to always be skeptical (without being judgmental):

"It was a fun conversation, and the guy/story is probably full of shit."

It depends. In this example, if the listener says "I don't think it was Tom Cruise in that movie" and the speaker says "Whatevs, that doesn't matter", then sure, it didn't matter.

If the speaker said "No, it WAS Tom Cruise", then obviously it does matter. You can't know whether it matters or not until you express doubt.

So, in your example of the Irish word, that's exactly how misinformation gets spread so easily. I doubt anyone is in danger from thinking a certain Irish word exists which doesn't actually exists. But the exact same scenario can be used when people drop a "Did you know <group I don't like> is doing <bad thing>? They're so awful." And then that gets carried to the next conversation each person has.

I think we do benefit a little bit from curiosity to know the truth behind the bullshit people say to us.

And there's a compromise, too. It's actually possible to finish a train of thought or conversation and then look up the facts, keeping everybody on the same page. It's even more fun that way.

> It's actually possible to finish a train of thought or conversation and then look up the facts, keeping everybody on the same page. It's even more fun that way.

I'd be careful about "keeping everybody on the same page". If you know they'd appreciate it, then sure. But a significant portion of the population do not like being fact checked. They assume malicious intent (not realizing you factcheck everyone and not just them).

Below is an email I once got. The context: A bunch of us were having a social conversation after an event. A professor made a claim about how hot it would get in his country. It struck me and another one as off because the number was a bit higher than the world record. We hinted at it but he insisted we were wrong.

Some hours later, at home, my friend fact checked and sent a polite email pointing out that the highest ever recorded temperature in his country was a few degrees lower than his claim. His response:

"If I were you i would not have spent a minute doing that unless you want to prove a point: I was a liar. ... At last, that's why I do not hang around with you guys."

People will jump to conclusions about your motives.

Sending an email several hours later to fact check someone is not even in the same ballpark as pulling out your phone at the end of a discussion and looking up the fact together. Honestly, I think most people would consider that malicious or at best kind of arrogant.

Take a poll to see what people think. IME, the majority do not want to check it during the conversation - they usual flow is they'll move on to other topics.

I'm not sure why the email thing is malicious or arrogant. It's the equivalent of saying it in person the next time you all meet: "Hey, remember we were talking about X last time? I looked into it and ..."

But your reaction emphasizes the point: People will jump to conclusions about your motives.

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