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fiddlemath comments on How can people be actually converted? - Less Wrong
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It's a loss of status, to whom?
I've heard that expressed before, but I am usually immensely impressed by someone who can see that they are wrong and admit it, particularly if I already think they are a smarty pants. Sure, you've lost the battle, which is often just a big swinging dick contest anyway, but you've won the war. Grasping an argument and being able to see that you are wrong is much more impressive than just having the right answer.
Think of it this way. If in fact your argument is more wrong, folding is the smart play. Doubling down on a bad hand is hardly status enhancing.
Oh, I agree entirely: if you are soundly convinced that you have been wrong, then you have become less wrong. You win!
It's easy to say that, and relatively easy to see why it's true. It's much harder to convince all of the parts of myself that, when I see that I'm wrong, admitting it, and changing my mind, is a good thing. There is some part in-built part of me that views it as losing -- as accepting a defeat in front of an opponent.
To be a little florid: this is a relatively weak agent in me, and I usually succeed in ignoring him. But I still hear him. I'd rather he shut up. He offers, essentially, a general counterargument against me changing my mind, and is thus an impediment to updating on new evidence.
It's not just that you win by becoming less wrong.
My point was that at least with some people, you gain in status when you admit you were wrong.
This is true, and it can be an important thing to learn, but unfortunately most of us operate on heuristics, learned or innate, that urge us not to do this.