Factual opinion?

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"I’ve just been feeling frustrated because I feel like you’ve been questioning a lot of my statements."

This friend's remark, during a sort-of-apology he made to me, puzzled me at first. Does he expect me to not disagree with his statements? Many of his statements are arrogant and sometimes delivered arrogantly too but that's besides the point. I sometimes question and/or disagree with his statements because of the content, not the mode of delivery.

There were some clues to this puzzle in this recent exchange: 

#1 

Him: I have never heard of a cluster where almost 50% tested are positive. TG must be breaking SOP and completely neglecting their workers health. And now they’ve overloaded our healthcare system. We can’t deal with 2684 covid patients appearing at once?!?

Me: Did our Health DG say that our healthcare system is overloaded?

Him: Ah, fair, that’s just my assumption. Maybe they can actually cope with 2684 cases appearing at once. ... I seriously doubt it, but fine, let’s see.

Him: I’ll offer you a bet at 5-1 odds, my RM500 against your RM100, that this is going to overload our healthcare system... interested? ;)

Notice that he didn't back his assertion and was so confident in it that he gave me good odds in the betting offer.

#2

Me: I'm going to shut you out right now

Him: Ok, sorry. The correct answer is no there has been no announcement yet about our healthcare system being overloaded.

Once again he was confident that his assertion was correct. It merely hadn't been officially announced yet.

#3

This was the next day, when he apologised for lashing out at me. I shall present parts that are relevant to this post.

Him: I sort of have a similiar point to convey, but the method and language I used was TERRIBLE and completely inappropriate

Him: If I could go back in time, (which I can’t! Must be more careful with words), I would say, “don’t you think I’m almost certainly correct? I feel unhappy that you are questioning my statement.” ... then again, it is true, it was just a conjecture, there really is a small chance that I was wrong.

Noticed that he believed that there was only "a small chance" that he was wrong and yet all this time he didn't provide evidence and/or analysis to back this assertion.

Conclusion

You know how we get upset over, say, someone trying to convince people that the Sun revolves around the Earth? Or at the nonsense that anti-vaxxers are sprouting? That's because we are protective of facts, not opinions.

Similarly, I'm guessing that this friend wasn't upset that I questioned his opinions but rather I questioned what he considered as facts to him. However, at least in this particular case, his 'fact' wasn't substantiated.

Guess who else treats his opinions as facts, without substantiating them? Donald Trump. 

Comments

William said…
After I identify such people, I stop commenting altogether. Hidup lebih bahagia.
November 29, 2020 at 12:49 PM
Jaded Jeremy said…
William,
Yes, I've decided to try this way too. My eyeballs will be getting lots of exercise haha. Problem is that we meet almost everyday and often he asked me what I think of his statements.
November 30, 2020 at 1:44 PM
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