Ask Lemmy

Caught in this battle so often, never forgot it when I saw/read it in the Witcher series (games/books) - this is some of the core things about the series. Gerald must pick a side and he doesn't.

It can be very harmful to act on an uninformed opinion. There's also simply too much out there to be informed on everything, so logically there should be lots of things you aren't able to have a valid opinion on.

People frequently get around this by finding people they think they can trust, and borrowing their "informed opinion" on things. But this can also be risky, and easily leads to groups with highly polarized opinions (political parties, etc). Even borrowing scientific/expert "opinions" on things can lead you astray, as we've seen with many of the funded studies on food health. Two experts can easily have conflicting opinions on something, with strong arguments/evidence to back up their stance.

So basically having completely uninformed opinions is dangerous, it's not possible to learn everything well enough to have a good opinion on it, and borrowing others opinions on things only works some of the time. So it's probably best to accept that you shouldn't have a strong opinion on most things, and to be always willing to re-evaluate your opinions if you run into evidence that refutes your current opinions.

That's a good question. I'd say be aware what you're ignorant about. Most people are ignorant. They have strong opinions about one conflict in the Middle East while they simultaneously ignore ongoing genocides in Africa. And my question is, does it help anyone if we argue with relatives or on the internet? I'd say it's alright to say I don't take sides, it's a shitty situation but not my field of expertise, so I don't have an opinion.

It's rarely a bad thing to be informed about things. And you always need information/education to make good decisions. Especially as a citizen in a democracy, it's your duty to elect your leaders, so you better have some idea about who's going to ruin the country and who's going to make it better. But that doesn't mean you have to know everything. And it also doesn't mean you need to blast your opinion out there.

And it's okay to be tired of US politics. Due to current circumstances. However, it shouldn't be that way. We learn about history and politics (in school) for a good reason. We're a part of the world and a part of what's going on.

I think it is fine to not have an opinion on an issue.

Relevant Key & Peele: That One Friend Who Makes Everything Awkward.

You need to have an opinion on everything that ever happened. Every forgotten Canadian drama series, every city in the Dominican Republic, every American football player. If you don't you are failing to appreciate the world in all its glory and will go to hell as a consequence.

Everyone thinks they need an opinion on everything until they order a sub from Subway and the server asks if they want 25 or 26 sesame seeds on their buns.

Having an opinion about everything is a sign of extreme hubris. Most people have no knowledge about most of things (lacking education and experience in most of the areas) yet many feel like experts in macroeconomy, geopolitics, social topics, culture - anything and everything.

Maybe

Do you think it's okay to not have an opinion on something?

Yes, absolutely. There are enough issues in the world that you probably don't know about a lot of them. And even once you are made aware of an issue, you likely don't have enough information to form a well considered opinion. It's also possible that you will never have enough information on an issue to have a well formed opinion. You only have so many hours in a day and, unless an issue impacts you directly, it's quite possible that you just won't have the time to put into it. There's no reason to feel bad about this, the issues that are most important to me may not be the issues which are most important to you.

How important is it to educate myself and ask questions?

Very important. If you are going to have an opinion on something, you should try to have a basic understanding of the issue. You'll never be an expert on everything; but, for issues which you truly care about, you should have at least a passing understanding of the subject matter. Also, asking questions is always good. If someone is trying to shutdown your asking questions, you should start questioning that person's motives.

Do you feel that pressure to have an opinion on everything?

Nope. One of the big secrets of life is learning to set boundaries. Just because someone else is incredibly passionate about something doesn't mean you need to be. Learn to tell people "fuck you and the horse that came on you". If that bothers them, then that's their problem, not yours. This isn't carte blanche to be an asshole, you should still strive to be a good person and act in pro-social ways. But, it does mean that you can draw a line and not have to own everyone else's problems all the time.

For an ordinary citizen, absolutely. Most topics in the world, I have no opinion on, or I have the opinion that there are good points on both sides, or I have the opinion that one side is right about one thing and the other about another, or I have the opinion that one side is mostly right but the other also legitimate.

Politicians meanwhile are more-or-less required to have opinions about most political matters (or at least be able to say that they stand for them even if they don't internally hold them). They will have to vote on them after all, and voters expect to know what they're going to get on nearly all matters.

I guess so, maybe. I don't know, whatever.

Yes

Of course. It's the default option. No pressure. You decide how important it is to you.

So this is interesting... My favorite of the definitions of "opinion" I found is

belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge

Because I was about to say that it's impossible not to have an opinion, which might not be entirely correct.

In DBT we were told that there are helpful, consequential and inconsequential ehm... evaluations? Assessments? Judgments? I don't know the exact translation. Anyway, an important thing I realized then was that opinions/values etc are not something you form consciously, they just kinda pop up in your head and change shapes depending on what you learn and experience. You are able to detach from your opinions, look at them from the outside.

edit: so what I ultimately wanted to tell you is that you can do this detachment thing with other people's opinions as well.

People are terrible. They judge you no matter what you do. I'm ready to go live in the woods. At least wolves only kill you because they're hungry.

I may be the wrong person to ask right now haha.

Maybe 😃

I have no opinions on Israel vs Palestine except that it's bad and I want it to stop because it's hurting so many people. I don't understand the conflict or why we should want one side to win over the other. I realize Israel is controversial but I don't really know why.