Sorry for Whatever

Last week, I posed the following question on Twitter:

Why is “I don’t really understand what I did to upset you, but I’m sincerely sorry for whatever it was” so ineffective?

If you respond, “Because figuring out how you upset someone is easy,” you are crazy!!!

— Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan) January 1, 2021

Few of the responses impressed me, but perhaps that’s because I failed to flesh out the hypothetical.  I’m picturing a scenario where:

a. The speaker speaks in a sincere tone of voice.

b. Th...