VER-XV-0052
“I changed my mind in public when the facts turned, and it cost me nothing real.”
You'd dug in, said it out loud, staked some pride on it. Then the evidence moved and so did you — in front of people, where backing down feels like losing. It wasn't a loss. The relief of dropping a false position is what honesty does to a person. Feynman's whole rule lives here: the easiest person to fool is yourself, and today you refused to.
Your Practice
- Say plainly where you'd been wrong and what changed it. Precision shows it was real, not performance.
- Notice the relief. Defending a false position is heavier than dropping it.
- Thank whoever brought the evidence. Reward the thing that corrects you.
- Make 'follow the facts even in public' the standard, even when it costs the argument.
The Architects
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
— Richard Feynman, Richard P. Feynman, 'Cargo Cult Science', Caltech commencement address, 1974