alt Hacker NewsInterpreted literally, my version is clearly false. But when combined with my explanation of how I think about it, I don't believe it is false.
More importantly, to me, it engages me with the exact tradeoff that I have found myself choosing between. I find it helpful to make the choice explicit, rather than implicit and driven by emotion.
If your version works for you, then great. But for me, prioritizing useful over right, begs the question of what useful means, and who gets to define it. The answer to that situation isn't currently obvious to me. I've spent most of my life putting one foot in front of the other, chasing fairly clear goals. And now I'm trying to figure out what goals I should even be chasing at the moment.
It may be that your version might appeal to some future version of me. But for present me, my version is far more directly relevant.
> If your version works for you, then great.
I'm not sure that our versions differ.
> But for me, prioritizing useful over right, begs the question of what useful means, and who gets to define it.
The other party, generally. What I meant by "being useful" is to begin with finding out what the other person needs. What problem are they actually trying to solve? It could be a technical problem different from what they came to me with. It could be that they just wanted to vent and relate something (in which case it totally is not helpful to point out many of the (e.g. technical) mistakes they made in their narration). Being useful can be something different from all of the above.
My point was that when the focus is on being useful, you are more likely to ask yourself "How do I know my behavior/response is actually helping them?"
One can easily be right and yet not solve anyone's problem.