Confidenly wrong

May 12, 2025

There have been way too many times where I thought a test would be an easy 100%, only to be met with a disastrous 80%. Or, I’d get into an argument with someone, totally convinced that I was right, only to later realize that I was the idiot all along.

What bothers me isn’t the fact that I was wrong, it’s the fact that I was so confident about it. Like I was mentally incapable of realizing my own error, that in hind sight, seems so obvious. So I’ve been wondering: how is it that we can be so confidently wrong?

It might be due to ignorance. You don’t know what you don’t know, after all. But what’s really terrifying is the prospect of internalizing something incorrect, and you can’t realize it. Imagine living in a country where the government controls the media and floods it with propaganda. You might think you’re informed, but you have no idea what’s actually true because you can’t see beyond what you’re being told. You don’t know what they’re hiding, and if you try to question it, you sound like some conspiracy theorist.

The obvious antidote to being wrong is to research more and try to base your opinions off of reality. But that’s problematic. How do you know what sources are actually correct? Even with scientific subjects it’s not so straightforwards, since even data can lie. It just circles back to the original problem.

I think the best way to avoid being confidently wrong is to seek out people who think totally different from you. Of course, they could also be confidently wrong too. But I think that seeking out many, many different people reduces that problem. Listening to these people talk and understanding their point of view exposes weak spots in your own thinking. Not to argue, or to judge, but to just listen. Through that you start to see weak spots in your own thinking. So perhaps you don’t end up with the most objectively correct stance, but the most nuanced one.