I. The question of confidence

Should one hold strong opinions? Some say yes. Some say that while it’s hard to tell, it tentatively seems pretty bad (probably).

A quick review of purported or plausible pros:

Strong opinions lend themselves to revision:
1. Nothing will surprise you into updating your opinion if you thought that anything could happen. A perfect Bayesian might be able to deal with myriad subtle updates to vast uncertainties, but a human is more likely to notice a red cupcake if they have claimed that cupcakes are never red. (Arguably—some would say having opinions makes you less able to notice any threat to them. My guess is that this depends on topic and personality.)
2. ‘Not having a strong opinion’ is often vaguer than having a flat probability distribution, in practice. That is, the uncertain person’s position is not, ‘there is a 51% chance that policy X is better than policy -X’, it is more like ‘I have no idea’. Which again doesn’t lend itself to attending to detailed evidence.
3. Uncertainty breeds inaction, and it is harder to run into more evidence if you are waiting on the fence, than if you are out there making practical bets on one side or the other.
(In a bitterly unfair twist of fate) being overconfident appears to help with things like running startups, or maybe all kinds of things.
If you run a startup, common wisdom advises going around it saying things like, ‘Here is the dream! We are going to make it happen! It is going to change the world!’ instead of things like, ‘Here is a plausible dream! We are going to try to make it happen! In the unlikely case that we succeed at something recognizably similar to what we first had in mind, it isn’t inconceivable that it will change the world!’ Probably some of the value here is just a zero sum contest to misinform people into misinvesting in your dream instead of something more promising. But some is probably real value—suppose Bob works full time at your startup either way. I expect he finds it easier to dedicate himself to the work and has a better time if you are more confident. It’s nice to follow leaders who stand for something, which tends to go with having at least some strong opinions. Even alone, it seems easier to work hard on a thing if you think it is likely to succeed. If being unrealistically optimistic just generates extra effort to be put toward your project’s success, rather t

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Strong Opinions Weakly Held