[nonethewiser]

I enjoyed your thoughts on people preferring to be right but having competing personal interests.

I have started and stopped writing several chains of thought related to it. But it makes me think about what categories of things we may prefer to be right about. And how they do or do not fit into the model you described. For example, empirical (the elephant weights more than a mouse), pragmatic ("hot water is good for your health" in Chinese culture), moral (murder is bad), etc. "Truth", "being right" etc. are just loaded terms I guess. The claims about being able to function effectively seem largely true for the more empirical stuff but the sort of information silos discussed online draw more idealogical lines.

Also made me think how a nihilist or social constructivist might behave or model things differently. it just seems like if you have a more relativist interpretation of truth, being right and believing in something is just the same thing. So it would be literally impossible for those things to be in conflict (either naturally or from the perspective of the person).