Admitting When You Are Wrong in Great Debates

I’ve seen many, many people twist themselves into pretzels when they are called out on something in Great Debates, are shown to be wrong, but then simply won’t admit it. If you are one of these people, wouldn’t it be easier to just say you were wrong and move on? Do you not insult your own intelligence when you realize the other person(s) were right but can’t come out and say it? Is it not more humiliating in your own mind not to do so, and then continue on with some pathetic attempt to save face?

I realize that asking this question in this manner may result in few people who have ever found themselves in this position answering it honestly, because that would require them to do what they couldn’t do in the Great Debate thread in the first place. Namely, that doing so would be an admission that they were once WRONG!, and we can’t admit that, now can we?

Being that this thread will likely get no responses (and I jest here) because I do not hope this is the case and don’t think it will be, I hereby offer it a service to the Dope. Whenever you find yourself in such a situation, and the other person won’t come clean, just link back to this thread, and your point will be clear. :slight_smile:

I always thought that the standard way to admit error was to drop the subject and never speak if it again, abandoning the entire thread if necessary.

Every single time I find out that I am wrong I will say “I was wrong”.

My response is usually more along the lines of “details, schmeetails. I’m still right about everything else and you failed to counter my main point anyway.”

I’m charming like that.

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

Please don’t. I’ve gotten in trouble for that sort of thing.

I have long argued that** Great Debates** should be renamed The Argument Sketch From Monty Python for the very reason the OP posits.

Today I happened to read through 2 pages of a thread in GD about guns and the media, started by DrDickhead and with a steaming turd by resident troll Hurricanedickhead thrown in as standard.

The amount of utter bollocks I read in just 2 pages was incredible, and further cemented my opinion that this board is just troll central. There is no way that anybody writes those posts, writes those words without realising just how fucking stupid they really are.

Admit they are wrong? Most of those cunts know full well they are wrong, they knew it before they hit the submit reply button. So why would they admit to being wrong when being right isn’t why they are here in the first place?

Yeah, I thought about this on the way home. Not a good idea, because questioning someone’s honesty in GD is verboten. I retract this idea. It was wrong. And thanks for bringing it up and reminding me so I could come here and admit that I was, you know, wrong. :wink:

Oh, and for the record, I’ve been guilty to some degree of this, being reluctant to admit I said something incorrect, but it was way in the past and for many years I’ve tried to live by the OP concept.

Great example of this (in the pit but no doubt said everywhere else)i had recently was that “Donald Trump said Nazis were very fine people!”

No, no he didn’t. No, he didn’t even imply it. You can post the entire transcript of the statement where he never says it and people will STILL say he said it, being completely wrong and knowing it.

People who like to talk politics are tribal, and just like their favorite politicians it’s all about twisting and bending and lying.

No it shouldn’t.

Wait, you can do that? :eek:

Bullshit. Trump specifically said “There are fine people on both sides”. One of the sides he was referring to is neo-Nazis. You know what neo-Nazis are? They’re Nazis, you nitwit.

But, of course, you’re no stranger to lying.

No married man will survive very long by insisting that he is NEVER wrong.

Sixty plus years of experience are behind that statement.

Aaaaaaaand exhibit A ^

You say this knowing that in the very same statement, 2 or three sentences after this, he specifically says that he’s not talking about neo-Nazis, yet you mischaracterize his statement intentionally. If you watch/read the statement in full context it’s clear he’s saying that there were people there that were not neo Nazis and were protesting the removal of the statue, unaffiliated with them.

He never said what you say he said and he didn’t even imply it.

The only legitimate argument you can make is that it was a bumbling, moronic statement but to think and claim that he said something that he didn’t is just embarrassing.

Trump Didn’t Call Neo-Nazis ‘Fine People.’ Here’s Proof.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/21/trump_didnt_call_neo-nazis_fine_people_heres_proof_139815.html

See what I mean? Fucking troll central.

Translation:

“Boo hoo the bad man won’t let me lie”

Oh huzzah, another episode of the Annoyed Show (with special guest star Morey Amsterdam).

I am no fan of Donald Trump, the Republican Party, or the right-wing of this board. But if this:

“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

is what Donald Trump said, then just on the basis of that I would be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. in other words I don’t think he believes/said that neo-Nazis are very fine people and it is unfair to state that he did say or imply that.

I would genuinely like to be shown where I am wrong and if so I will happily admit such :).