[edent]

The biggest con is that sometimes you'll be wrong. Embarrassingly so. It might be a prediction that was duff, a solution that was non-optimal, or an opinion that's so far out of mainstream it warns people off you.

The best way to manage that is to show people in private before you publish. That can be as simple as having a friend or partner check your spelling. Or it can be as complex as getting several people to sense-check your ideas and give you robust feedback.

The other big issue is that people can (deliberately?) misinterpret what you've written. Humans don't write in a formal, logical manner. So everything you write is open to a bad-faith actor trying to undermine you. So you have to make peace with the fact that you're not writing a thesis to be examined and that some people are just arseholes.

Life's too short to spend it worrying about what might go wrong. Take some sensible precautions and learn to live with the occasional public goof.

[taeric]

I do wish more folks were both fearless to be hilariously wrong, and that folks allowed it more.

Instead, everything has to feel well rehearsed. It is exhausting to try and emulate. :(

[pyth0]

I believe that a lot people are quite comfortable in being hilariously wrong, look at any modern political discourse, but the problem in my mind is that people aren't equally prepared to self-reflect and admit fault or reconsider a position.

At the same time though, I do find myself often times at work qualifying things with "I think" or similar phrasing, and I'm still not sure if I do it to avoid embarrassment or if it's to not come off as too arrogant. Maybe it's both.

[baby]

Yeah, being at ease with the possibility of being wrong (and not letting that prevent you from expressing yourself) + having the skill to admit and recognize when you’re wrong are two great qualities in combination. Only have one of them and you’re either a politician or you’re dumb (you’re always wrong lol)

[taeric]

Some of that is in control, though. What we call political speech is often not someone being hilariously wrong, but them saying what they know will be received well by an audience.

[Swizec]

It looks well rehearsed because by the time you see it, usually it has been rehearsed.

Comedians bomb in small clubs so they shine on the big stage. Writers like me publish blog posts and articles so the ideas that make it into books are battle tested. The podcast episode that goes viral is usually the 10th+ time that podcaster has said the same thing in slight variations.

TV and radio hosts keep saying the same things and having similar conversations over and over daily for decades.

[taeric]

Right, my choice of calling it well rehearsed was on purpose. I wish all things didn't have to be rehearsed. See any of my poor blogs. :)

Note, edited and redone is fine. Rehearsed is also fine. I just don't think all things should have to be. Which is why I say I wish it were more allowed.

[Swizec]

I think it is allowed. See all my examples :)

It’s just super unlikely that any of us will get to see the early versions. When something is repeated hundreds of times, being there for the first one is pretty rare.

Especially when you consider that the versions that didn’t work get killed quickly whereas the things that worked get repeated lots.

[taeric]

The Internet is making an odd allowance on the idea, though. Criticism and such often devolve into ridicule and attacks. In ways that I've been seeing spill over to many work interactions.

And then there are plays and such. I ridiculed power rangers back in my adolescence, but I have grown to appreciate the unpolished nature. And I think I miss it.

[mschoeffler]

This ability to be wrong is essential and so so rare. There's almost nobody who's infallible, but plenty appear that way. In reality, they care more about never appearing wrong and therefore edit and censor themselves until they're only speaking on subjects where they can't possibly err.

The rest of us pick up on this and sense the plastic shell. Worse, by never risking, they never excel in the way they could.

[baby]

I made it a point that every time I feel like I might be embarrassed writing something because I clearly should already know about it, or it’s too easy and everyone already knows about it, then I’ll write it nonetheless

[clnq]

Do you mean corporatese (corpspeak) and CEOspeak? You naturally learn to speak and write it publicly, not to upset cynical people. It comes without rehearsing with enough experience and is difficult to emulate.

You need to know the conversational minefield very well.

[taeric]

I mean anything. Take my post here as a good example. I'm positive it could be more eloquently stated. Probably more correctly stated. I'm getting a lot of enjoyment from the discourse, though. In ways I don't think I would get from well polished writings.