Ask HN: How to be less opinionated?

If X is tied to your identity, you will have strong ideas and opinions about X.

To correct this, perform some analysis and see if it is not really a weakness.

Some probing questions:

- What do you "win" when you force others to understand X is right?

- Are you caught up in a relationship or para-relationship where someone else Y is actually winning because you are proselytizing X?

- If so, is this relationship a net benefit to you? Why are you supporting Y, is Y benefiting you directly? Are you dependent on Y? Do you want to be dependent on Y?

- Could Y possibly be using explicit or implicit consequences, fears, or money to manipulate you?

- "Warrior fallacy" - if you perceive yourself as "fighting" for a side, who really cares? Are you caught in social media outrage loops which is really a self-affirmation indulgence? How does your "battle" really affect important things like your paycheck or your mode/method of living up and above things you can do yourself?

- "Individualism fallacy" = "if only each individual does X then problem Y is fixed" when the real problem is an entity much more powerful than a single individual. Refusing to deal the true root cause always results in failure, but you may feel like you are "doing something." Don't be blind.

Having strong opinion usually mean that you don't know much about the subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

I kind of think of opinions as conclusions blended with personal values:

"This thing is X" + "some of X aligns with my personal values" -> "X is great, we should do X".

The trick is to untangle your personal values when they're not applicable. i.e. at work, it's a good idea to have a set of agreed team (and higher) tenets/values that you can apply instead of your own -- just don't join teams/orgs that fundamentally conflict with what your hold dear. This way, when there are inevitable disagreements, it's more about whether any particular idea is in alignment with the agreed values, rather than you perceiving them as a direct attack on your own.

Not a perfect solution, but if you don't have that foundational agreement on "what matters", every single decision has a much higher chance of becoming a personal conflict.

> This happens because they were not planning to have a conversation

Interesting. Would you have a link?

"I was just now ruminating, as I often do, what a free and roving thing human reason is. I ordinarily see that men, in things propounded to them, more willingly study to find out reasons than to ascertain truth: they slip over presuppositions, but are curious in examination of consequences; they leave the things, and fly to the causes." (Michel de Montaigne)

I feel like open-mindedness is something you can practice. Strong and inflexible opinions are often the result of motivated reasoning, and motivated reasoning occurs when you feel that to believe certain things would harm your identity. But the thing is, it doesn't have to harm your identity unless you let it. You can feel strongly about social justice and equality, and still calmly read about e.g. minimum wage, all of the pros and cons and the results of empirical studies without, poof, instantly turning into a neoconservative.

The other thing to realize is that being very settled in your opinions also means that you're probably closing yourself off from other perspectives and new information – you already know everything there is to know, which is why you're so vocal about it. But again, there's really no need for any of this. You can eat meat but listen to a vegan explain their choices without feeling the need to defend your own opinion and without feeling that not to immediately make a counterargument would make you lose the argument and to admit to being a bad person. Who cares about winning arguments? Try to learn something new instead, even if only why other people think what they think.

When you think along those lines, over time you'll (hopefully) become less emotionally attached to your opinions, less tribal and less easily riled up whenever someone says something you disagree with.