If it is sweet to be right, then - let's not deny it - it is downright savory to point out that someone else is wrong.
Kathryn SchulzError ... is less an intellectual problem than an existential one - a crisis not in what we know, but in who we are. We hear something of that identity crisis in the questions we ask ourselves in the aftemath of error: What was I thinking? How could I have done that?
Kathryn SchulzTake away the ability of an intelligent, principled, hard-working mind to get it wrong, and you take away the whole thing.
Kathryn SchulzA whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessments of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds when we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient.
Kathryn Schulz