Ask Lemmy

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.

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.

Maybe

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