Exactly. And I'd argue that the vast majority of conversations are of the second type, not the first type. And if all you want/have are the first type, I think you need to experience more of the second type.
But using the "true details" (who cares if it's Ethan Hawk or Tom Cruise or whoever in Gattaca when you're discussing the relevance of the genetic engineering aspects of it) as a measure of how trustworthy someone is? That's just ridiculous to me, especially because for most conversations it doesn't matter.
> But using the "true details" (who cares if it's Ethan Hawk or Tom Cruise or whoever in Gattaca when you're discussing the relevance of the genetic engineering aspects of it) as a measure of how trustworthy someone is? That's just ridiculous to me,
It is ridiculous, and not something I was advocating.
The signal is not in whether their story is riddled with inaccuracies, but whether they get upset when questioned about it, and whether they are willing to simply say "Yeah I probably got some of the details wrong."
Of course, if someone questions every detail of the story, it kills the story. The storyteller merely needs to say "Yeah, some of the details are probably off" .
Yeah, I misread. But it is often rude and disrupting the conversation, though it can be done tactfully "Oh, I believe it was Ethan Hawke actually". It can also open up room for more conversation "No, I'm pretty sure it was Tom Cruise", where the debate of it becomes the conversation. Which is fine, and still doesn't say anything to me about the trustworthiness of the person who was telling the story. Nor does it necessarily imply they need to be fact checked on Google right now; again, it's tangential to the overarching part of the conversation. I still think using that single measure as a measure of trustworthiness is ridiculous. Especially in a conversation that's not deep.
> The storyteller merely needs to say "Yeah, some of the details are probably off" .
I feel this is an unwritten rule of conversation in general. It certainly is amongst my friend groups, even recounting stories where we were all present. It obviously wouldn't work for debates, or if you were discussing things like political policy, but most conversations don't fall into those types of things. Just sitting around shooting the shit.
> I feel this is an unwritten rule of conversation in general.
There is a bit of cognitive dissonance that I observe.
It indeed is an unwritten rule. Most people agree with this rule.
Yet wait a while after the conversation, and people who listened treat the story as a lot more factual than what that rule implies, and more than they themselves believed it in the moment. The only antidote I have seen to prevent this transformation is to always be skeptical (without being judgmental):
"It was a fun conversation, and the guy/story is probably full of shit."
> But using the "true details" (who cares if it's Ethan Hawk or Tom Cruise or whoever in Gattaca when you're discussing the relevance of the genetic engineering aspects of it) as a measure of how trustworthy someone is? That's just ridiculous to me, especially because for most conversations it doesn't matter.
It depends. In this example, if the listener says "I don't think it was Tom Cruise in that movie" and the speaker says "Whatevs, that doesn't matter", then sure, it didn't matter.
If the speaker said "No, it WAS Tom Cruise", then obviously it does matter. You can't know whether it matters or not until you express doubt.
But using the "true details" (who cares if it's Ethan Hawk or Tom Cruise or whoever in Gattaca when you're discussing the relevance of the genetic engineering aspects of it) as a measure of how trustworthy someone is? That's just ridiculous to me, especially because for most conversations it doesn't matter.