We’ve started rewarding confidence more than accuracy. That means the people most sure of themselves are often the ones least in contact with reality. This isn’t random. It’s an incentive structure.
Certainty feels safe. Perceived safety feels like leadership. Leadership gets reach. Reach gets reinforcement. Reinforcement looks like proof. At that point you’re not arguing reality anymore — you’re defending status.
This is why calling someone stupid never works. You’re not threatening their facts. You’re threatening their survival position in the social graph they depend on.
So “how do we convince them” is probably the wrong question. The question is: what conditions make it possible for someone to safely update their story without losing their place in the only world that currently tolerates them?
Clarity without humiliation isn’t softness. It’s engineering a path back to contact with reality that doesn’t feel like self-erasure.