When Having Friends is More Alluring than Being Right (by Ferrett Steinmetz)

Instead of assuming, as the linked post does, that "I am right and those loonies are wrong", consider answering the question in the link, when applied to oneself:

“What if you got irrefutable proof that the Earth was round? You’d lose all your friends. Could you walk away from this culture you helped create?”

Say

“What if I got irrefutable proof that [my belief X] contradicts evidence? I'd lose all my friends believing X. Could I walk away from this culture I helped create?”

where X can be "left-wing political values" or "Bayesian rationality" or "freedom of choice" or... you name a belief you hold dear and invested a lot of effort to create a group around.

I wonder if asking people "How would you test that?" when they make factual claims*, would work better than judging**.

Judging might be used because it requires less investment - especially when you don't have evidence, other than (set of people/"everyone") (assert) they believe this.

*I don't know if it would work if you only did it when you think they're wrong.

**See Slider's comment [LW(p) · GW(p)].

What is creating the problem is "you are wrong and we can't be friends" or "it's okay to bully people who are wrong". There seems to be two mindsets that are at odds. One is "you are wrong and it's important" and another is "you are wrong and it's not important". When those people have negative experiences when they are wrong I think they are experiencing wrongs. Pro-knowledge attitudes use being wrong as an opportunity to learn and be excited about new expertise areas you didn't know existed. If showing ignorance gets you diminished, depressed you fill try to shield from facing truth rather than strive to go towards it.

Being wrong doesn't mean you lose your human rights. Using an excuse of "he was wrong" for attacking someone is insufficient basis.

At one point the question is what are solutions "abandon them?" how about "stop abandoning them?"

Now in human communities thre is a danger that social status and technical expertise will become an undifferentiatted mess. One of the bad effects is that people can sell false propositions with their high status. But buying status with technical accuracy might not be any better. If you are wrong does it mean your needs do not matter and should not be met? A more refined norms set would probably treat these in different ways. How about you can lose your credibility via wrongness but never your human value? Maybe you should be able to socialise without having to risk say things that can turn out wrong?

If people are willing to bend their sense of reality to get attention you might get curoius whether you are giving your attention dues. People usually don't bend their sense of reality for giggles.