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Comment by lordkirchner | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think it’s uncommon to believe the person who started with the right answer is smarter, or wiser than the person who had to work to get there. However, many people land in the right answer right away by chance. If we valued finding the truth over being right, people would more often admit they had the right answer by simply guessing or because they followed their tribe.

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Yes. What makes people smarter or wiser is precisely that they work to get to the positions they hold (even if those positions are mistaken), and never stop questioning themselves or evaluating information that could change their position.

People seriously overvalue "being right". Discovering you're wrong is far more valuable and is worthy of celebration. It means you learned something, and are just a little less ignorant as a result.

> Discovering you're wrong is far more valuable and is worthy of celebration.

Sure, but if in the course of being convinced of the wrong thing they have caused harm it should cause guilt and embarrassment.

Hmmm, an interesting thought.

I think that regardless of whether or not someone's belief is correct, causing harm to unconsenting others should always cause some amount of guilt or embarrassment.

But if I hold a belief that is leading me to cause harm to people, and then I discover that I'm wrong, is that not a reason for even greater celebration? It means that I have become a less harmful person.

All of this is taking for granted that we know what 'right' and 'wrong' are. The takeaway from 'I was wrong' should always be 'I can still be wrong'.

Of course! Only a fool is 100% convinced that their positions are right or wrong in some absolute sense. Enlightenment is an ongoing process, not a destination.

One example is merely being born into the right answer, like a morally superior practice. You might never do the work to arrive at that moral position yourself so you might not actually hold the belief as strongly or as internally consistently as someone who reasoned themself into the position.

In my view, wise people don't declare they have the answer until they are sure, so it follows that wise people appear to start with the right answer.

That said, sometimes one needs to declare a position without be absolutely sure and it is wise in that scenario to declare the fact that you are unsure.

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