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Do you think it's okay to not have an opinion on something? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by greedytacothief to c/asklemmy

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It seems that over the past couple months or so, I started having and engaging in more political discussions (on account of the presidential election). When you're in that space, it feels like you need to have an opinion on every little thing. Geopolitics, taxes, financial policy, etc. How important is it to educate myself and ask questions? Do you feel that pressure to have an opinion on everything?

edit: I don't think this question is about politics, but if it is, I can delete this.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Certain things are OK to not have a political opinion on. Example: Taxes are complicated and most people don't understand them; most probably want to pay less of them but do not really need to put their limited political energy to focusing on them.
That applies to most nonpolitical subjects too... most things to have an opinion on like food, movies, music whatever, are generally of little consequence.

Things that affect the base existence of large swaths of the population, aka human rights, are not something a living citizen can admit a "don't care" opinion on. You either want to live free or you don't, and having no opinion on such is how you end up without the legal right to any opinions..

The key to both is to have a complete information stream before forming any opinion or comitting to not having one. I do a nonzero amount of research even before writing a lot of comments here on Lemmy to make sure my facts are straight, and maybe 40% of the time discover it's either not worth my time to write, or I was initially wrong and my comment shouldn't be made.