How to ALWAYS be Right
As a younger man I was wrong all the time, not that I was keen to admit it. In more recent years however, I discovered the secret of being right nearly 100% of the time. It doesn’t take untold amounts of studying trying to learn every aspect of every subject. It is something very simple, something you could start doing right this instant. Just imagine if you were never wrong ever again for the rest of your life, sounds pretty legit right? All you have to do is learn this one simple phrase, and repeat it frequently, “I don’t know.”
I know, your brain just melted and is currently running out of your ears and making a puddle on the floor. It’s really that simple though, stop acting like you know about things that you don’t know about, and you’ll never be wrong. This shouldn’t be news to anyone; this idea has been said over and over again for pretty much always. Here are three other people saying the exact same thing, in different ways:
“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.” –Socrates
“To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.” –Confucius
“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” –Nicolaus Copernicus
So you’d think by now, all people would already have figured out how to never be wrong…wrong. It seems pretty obvious, if you don’t know something, just say, “I don’t know.” Simple enough, or is it? Why do people bother trying to bullshit their way through a conversation, if they don’t truly understand the subject? Well I think I have a bit of an idea, because I used to be guilty of doing this exact thing; the answer is simple, “Insecurity.”
It is not exactly easy to say, “I don’t know.” Society has pressured you into thinking you might be lesser, or make you feel dumb, for not knowing something that someone else already knows. This is reinforced by phrases like, “Oh my god dude, how can you not know about this?!” It’s not fun to feel bad about ourselves for not knowing something. If we step back from the situation though, we can see that this is a truly dumb concept. You can’t know everything that everyone else knows. Every other person knows something that you don’t know, that’s just reality. Even the dumbest person in the world knows something that the smartest person in the world can never know, what it’s like to be dumb.
Another problem with never saying, “I don’t know.” Is that you aren’t going to learn anything that way. A fortune cookie that my roommate got the last time we were at a chinese restaurant summed this up nicely saying, “If you understand what you are doing, then you aren’t learning anything.” If you try to bullshit your way through a conversation, just because you’re afraid of seeming lesser, then you are not going to grow. A perfect example of this happened with me just last night.
Last night a few friends and I were sitting on the back porch having a conversation. A spider was in the corner weaving a web and that caused us to consider the nature of intelligence in other creatures. I could go more into that, but that’s a whole other blog topic. I then posed the question of intelligence in plants, giving the example, “How does a plant know to turn toward the sun? How does it manage this feat without muscles and a brain?” Immediately one person, who I won’t name, says, “It’s obvious, the cells in the plant move toward the sunlight, causing the plant to lean in the direction of the sun.” Now, when I started college my major was in Cellular and Molecular Biology, with an emphasis on genetic research. Even though I eventually switched majors, followed by dropping out altogether, I still remembered enough about basic plant biology to know this idea was ludicrous.
Because I have zero problems with confrontation, I let him know it. I said, “I really don’t believe that’s true at all, a cell in a structure doesn’t move from its place in that structure.” To which he retorted, “You’re saying cells don’t move? What about blood cells? Are you telling me they don’t move?” Already I know this conversation is going nowhere, he has demonstrated to me that he has no idea what he’s talking about, yet he’s saying it with a great deal of conviction, again I let him know. “What you’re saying doesn’t make sense, yes blood cells move; they are single cells moving through a structure. What evidence do you have that actually supports your idea?” Boom, got him… or so I thought.
“Well this is just my theory.” He says, to which I reply, “Ok, but you presented it like you knew a fact.” The next phrase he uttered perfectly sums up why stupid ideas get traction and are put into action. “Of course, I always say everything with conviction, it’s about being confident, if you say things confidently enough, people will listen.” Honestly, this statement scares the fuck out of me, mostly because I know it’s generally true. A perfect example of this idea causing a terrible situation is when U.S. government told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. So we went to war with them, turns out they were wrong about the WMD’s, yet here we are still fighting that war. I’m going to say this frankly; I think this is a terrible, ugly, monstrously stupid mindset. I hate his statement with every fiber of my being.
Imagine a world where everyone has this mindset, no one would ever learn anything; we’d all be walking around confidently spouting total bullshit at each other. Now flip it and imagine a society where everyone admits it when they don’t know something, and asks questions to learn about whatever it is they don’t know. It would be a utopian society, full of intelligent, open minded individuals. That’s never going to happen though, because we have grown up in a society where we feel pressured to know things, or you’ll come across as weaker in some regard.
In reality, the opposite is true. By saying, “I don’t know” at every opportunity, I know I can never be wrong, therefore I feel insanely confident in myself. Plus by admitting I don’t know something, I get the opportunity to wonder and become educated. In fact, after our discussion about plants, and admitting I didn’t know how plants moved toward the sun. I went inside and looked it up. (Turns out it’s caused by a chemical called “auxin” that causes cells to elongate on the side of the plant not facing the sun, forcing it to bend toward the sunlight.) Now if I ever get into that conversation again, I can confidently say I know why it happens. In conclusion, you can learn more, and never be wrong, by falling in love with the phrase, “I don’t know.”