People arguing with you about something when they are wrong

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You guys do know that angerly arguing over minor issues comes from self doubt and a lack of confidence, not from a position of strength, don't you?

The quietest person at a board meeting is usually the one who is most confident in their position. The one shouting & wildly waving his arms is usually the most insecure. The confident person also knows how and when to pick their battles. Someone who continually makes mountains out of mole hills can be very tiresome to be around.

I must admit, I do get a bit frustrated when people are going around spouting off ignorance and incorrect facts, and then won't listen when I try to correct those incorrect facts. I correct people so that they don't have to be incorrect anymore. But I only do it when I have proof on hand.

If they refuse to acknowledge the proof, well then, they're idiots and not worth the effort trying to help them learn something new. A person who continues to argue with incorrect facts and ignorance in the face of PROOF, just needs to be ignored.
Once I've tried to show them the proof and they still don't listen, I don't resort to yelling or violence. I forget about trying to educate those hopeless people and I move on.

When I'm the one who is spouting off ignorance and incorrect facts, and then I am presented proof that I am wrong, I gladly admit that I am wrong, I apologize, and then I forget the incorrect facts, remember the new correct facts, and present those instead.

Why would anyone want to continue being wrong all the time?

Hah, this just happened a few days ago. My brother said to the other person in the conversation, who shall remain nameless, that their "breath smells pungent". I think he'd just smoked a cigar or something. Anyway.

I'm like, "That was wrong, you're looking for the adverbial form." My brother denies this. I insist: "Yeah, you're wrong, it should be 'pungently' as 'pungent' is modifying a verb- 'smells'."

"Uh, no, it isn't."

"Wha- ohhhhhh. My bad." I hadn't even thought of 'pungent' referring to the word 'breath'. It was such a stereotypically Aspie thing to do that I just laughed instead of getting upset.

Though I try not to be, I have the capacity to be really bad with this. In fact, if somebody told me that it really was supposed to be 'pungently', I'd wake my brother up right now just to tell him.

A lawyer friend of my parents was holding forth on some political topic when he mentioned that "Canada is three times the size of the United States."

I pointed out that that was nonsense. Both countries are about the same physical size, Yes, Canada is bigger, but only by about five percent.

He was incredulous.

So we looked it up in an almanac, and sure enough I was right Canada was only about five percent bigger in land area than the USA (3.9 million square miles to 3.750 millin square miles).
I explained to him that most maps use the Mercator Projection which distorts polar regions to look bigger than they are. So Canada's size gets inflated because its closer to the North Pole than the lower 48 United States.

A year later his pride was still hurt.
So at that point I did concede to him one fact: one sixth of the whole USA is the one state of Alaska.

When you look at the two coutries on the map you tend to compare Canada only to the the contiguous lower 48 beneath it and not to think about alaska sticking out of Canada's left side. Canada IS almost 25 percent larger than the CONTIGUOUS United States- the USA sans Alaska (but thats still are far cry from 'three times as big').

He then tried to convince me that Hudson's Bay should be counted as part of Canada in order to beef up Canada's size size even further.

Whatever!

LOL... The one argument that almost ended a friendship years ago was regarding a misplaced comma. I was right, and I had provided about 3 different credible sources to prove it, but still, it took a week of arguing for that to happen. Was it worth it? Well, if we stopped being friends over it, no. Fortunately, we maintained a friendship, and I don't know where I'd be without her right now.

The thing is, I usually try not to speak my mind unless I'm sure I'm right about something... at least when it comes to facts. So, it's very rare that I'm wrong as a result because if I'm unsure, I usually keep it to myself or I will say, I'm not sure but I think..... As a result, my friends and family argue with me more. I think it's because they want to prove me wrong on something, so they'll argue with me about everything (including the weather). I think that because lately, I've been telling my friends and family that they have been right on a lot of things where I was wrong, and now they stopped arguing with me so often, even when I disagree with them.

What I think, in my theory, is that what goes on is to us Aspies, we are talking about the point, the fact. It's about being accurate to us. To other people, it's about ego. They could care less about the fact or the point or any type of accuracy. To correct someone is stepping on their ego a bit, and they will say any stupid thing to defend it.

There seems to be a theme here. Most of the posters here admit to sometimes having fought tooth and nail to defend a point only to later find out they were wrong. That's OK. That means you are human. That you don't know everything. But that also means that next time you get into a heated debate you should at least consider the possibilty that you may be wrong, or at the very least, think about whether having an intense arguement over some minor point really worth it in the overall scheme of things.