Criticize your ingroup

An easy way to gain credibility in my eyes is by voicing harsh truths about your ingroup:

Religious? 👉🏽 Criticize your religion
Academic? 👉🏽 Criticize academia
Indian? 👉🏽 Criticize India
etc..

The reverse also holds; Those who only talk positively of their ingroup look dumb as hell.

Furthermore, criticizing your ingroup conditions you to think more freely about the things you identify with, thereby lowering your ego and making you more open-minded.

But perhaps the greatest benefit of criticizing your ingroup is that your peers are much more likely to listen to you, especially if you have some authority or status in that ingroup. Iranians hearing from other Iranians about why Iran sucks, is more convincing than, say, an Israeli criticizing Iran.