Characteristics of Good and Bad Opinions

As someone who has spent a lot of time writing opinions and reading other’s opinions, I will elucidate the characteristics I have observed of successful opinions compared to unsuccessful opinions. Given that the web is awash with content, which is only compounded by AI-generated content, means the ability to articulate opinions well is more important than ever for standing out in the sea of noise. Fortunately, although an inexact science, the odds of success can be improved with attentiveness at the types of opinions that do well or how they are conveyed or phrased, but also knowing what to avoid. At 4,661 words, with a fifth of the earlier draft edited out, this is one of the longer posts here. But the topic of ‘opinions in the context of online discussion’ is broad, and I felt such prolixity was necessary to do the topic justice.

The inherent unpredictably of how the opinion is received is a major problem with having opinions, as this is the variable you have the least control over. Have you every composed what you thought was the perfect Reddit or Hacker News comment–relevant, politely-worded, and backed by evidence–only to have it be ignored or, worse, down-voted, even if no reason is given? That is the ‘marketplace of ideas’ telling you your opinion sucks. There are many times in which I have expressed good-intentioned opinions, only to meet such a fate. I was sure it was a good opinion, but it was not. There was something I was missing or blind/oblivious to that was only made obvious when pointed out, or maybe the opinion was conveyed poorly; either way, failure.

Due to the absence of downvotes, the Twitter-equivalent of a bad opinion is the ‘ratio’, which is when a tweet gets an unusually large quantity of comments relative to likes, typically, as I have observed, a minimum of 3-5 comments for every 10 likes, often signifying an unpopular, polarizing, or wrong opinion. On Reddit, I call it the ‘kill shot rebuttal’, which is when a reply/child comment gets vastly more upvotes than its parent. However, ratios are not always bad if the tweet engenders productive discourse, compared to a pile-on. Polls and open-ended questions will have ratios by intent.

I have experienced this enough times–and I am sure others too–that it motived me to write this post, in addition to a guide about the underrated value of deleting comments. There is seldom anything gained standing your ground to defend a bad or unpopular opinion, even if you are right, as the verdict has already been rendered by the marketplace that you are wrong. It’s like those viral videos that say not to talk to the police–the decision was already made that you’re going downtown; trying to explain your case to the cop cannot possibly help. Delete and move on; the feature to delete comments exists for a reason, yet way underused. It’s not being cowardly, nor worth dying on a hill, but rather making the social media experience more enjoyable by limiting the negativity at one’s own discretion.

In diagnosing the problem of bad opinions, typically people tend to come off arrogant and ignorant when expressing opinions. They convey unearned confidence. I look at why some YouTube videos or Reddit posts are downvoted so much (before YouTube removed the downvotes), and it is almost always at the intersection of arrogance and ignorance: they convey an unearned certainty of their beliefs. It’s not like being arrogant is always bad. You can be arrogant but have some positive qualities, such as likability or social proof (e.g. Andrew Tate), but you cannot be unlikable and ignorant, which is the worst place to be. Screenwriters imbue even the worst or most evil characters with some sort of persona or motive in an attempt to humanize them, as opposed to the one-dimensionality of the typical espouser of bad opinions.

The following opinions tend to do especially poorly:

First; getting the facts wrong in such a way that it undermines the premise of the opinion or destroys credibility. This means getting dates, names or other information wrong, which can be verified online. But this is hard for things in which epistemological certainty is not possible or if facts conflict, such as mask efficacy in the context of Covid. Also related is the ‘woosh’ meme or having the point go above your head, which means being wrong because you misread the context or inferred wrong. In this case, correctness works against you because something was taken too literally.

Second; downplaying or minimizing something which is complicated or difficult because you fail to understand why the complexity exists in the first place. This is related to unearned epistemological confidence. For example, “Why do doctors need so much training? I can read WebMD or Wikipedia for free.” Yes you can, but being a doctor is much more than that. On the other hand, silly observations about unserious or low-stakes matters tend to do better, e.g. “Why doesn’t Pringles make a square can?” Unlike the doctor example, lives are not at stake. Or “I can take out a lightweight MMA fighter,” which conveys a lack of humility combined with ignorance of the sport (no you can’t).

Third; a vibe shift. There is a reason intellectual schools of thought are described in the same language as fashion, like ‘trendy’ or ‘vogue’. When the vibe shifts, your opinion may be deemed obsolete in the marketplace, which unlike the stock market, is even less predictable and more fickle. I can be reasonably confident that in 5 years Walmart stock will do well, but who knows which opinions will still be popular or what vibe shifts will have occurred. Inaccuracies can be prevented to some degree with research and editing, but vibe shifts by definition are unpredictable and requires reading the room and phrasing the opinion in such a way as to be palatable (lots of hedging language) if one finds oneself on the wrong side of the shift.

What worked 10 years ago doesn’t work now, and what works now may not work in a decade from now. Reader tastes change, audiences comes and go, social mores are always in flux. It does not get easier, but it can get harder. I can attest that certain opinions I held years ago are not as popular now based on reception. For example, there is much more cynicism about technology and elite colleges now compared to a decade ago. In the former, this is due to fears of job loss and automation. In the latter, regarding affirmative action, cancel culture, and wokeness. There the widespread perception that these institutions are not only antithetical to academic freedom and are un-meritocratic, but also act as unelected gatekeepers to the middle class. Although the politization of issues is unavoidable, it has gotten worse in recent years. I think what happened is ‘the left’ had a good thing going. But then elites overplayed their hand during Covid and the George Floyd riots, and now we’re seeing increased distrust towards credentialed experts and policy-elites, whose motives are perceived as self-serving. It’s one thing to require lockdowns for all in the name of public safety–but to create exceptions for rioters to fight what is perceived as social injustice as businesses are forced to close, or exhortations to ‘trust the science’ even if the science changes or to suppress debate–is so transparently hypocritical that it’s hard to not walk away being cynical of the whole thing.

Fourth; a false equivalency based on inexperience, or falsely laying claim to a lived experience from which the equivalency conceived on. An example is likening something comparably small or trivial to going to war even if it’s presumed to be hyperbole. Unless you have actually served in combat, you cannot make such a comparison. On Reddit, someone likened a glazed cherry pie to drugs, and having not actually taken drugs, is downvoted and rebuked, as drugs are much stronger:

Note the clown emoji, which means two things: the opinion is not only wrong, but the person is not to be taken seriously, so all future opinions from this individual can be disregarded, which is the worst possible first impression you can make.

This is why accusations of stolen valor hit so hard, like during the 2004 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections. Or during the 2008 election, Hillary claiming being under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia during the ’90s, which she later recanted when footage showed she was in no such danger. Military service is just a job with a paygrade, like any other job, but stolen valor is attempt to covet the lived experience and heroism that is attached to the profession, undeservedly. Interestingly, this does not apply to the health and wellness industry, in which hucksters frequently make unsubstantiated claims or lay claim to unearned expertise, yet no one cares that much. It’s not as if society is totally opposed to pretenders, but the military has been put on a pedestal, unlike other jobs.

There are others, but those are the most common mistakes from my own observations. They also do not involve politics, nor are they logical fallacies (although the first can be considered a formal fallacy). For the fourth, although a false equivalency is an example of an informal fallacy, it’s not the false equivalency which makes the opinion bad, but how it’s attached to a lived experience that was not actually lived.

On the other hand, successful opinions combine accuracy, intellectual humility, strong credentials (of whoever is espousing the opinion) and having a correct reading of the room. Those who succeed at being persuasive don’t create a fortresses of epistemic certainty, but just accept and acknowledge their limitations, and this humbleness and vulnerability helps immensely at being likable. Joe Rogan for example never pretends to be an intellectual, because that would not work, being that he lacks the credentials and it would not be convincing to the audience, so he begins his interviews with the implicit assumption that he knows nothing and asks questions in order to break down a complicated concept into something his listeners can understand.

Bad opinions are not limited to politics or polarizing, high-stakes topics. Even small matters can elicit surprise blowback if the opinion is phrased poorly or otherwise unpopular. This happens a lot in discussions pertaining to mathematics, which is why I don’t even bother participating in those discussions anymore. Someone will make some claim about a result not being interesting and be pilloried with downvotes and negatives replies for either failing appreciate the importance of the result, or downvoted for getting some concept wrong. At least with politics you can read the room and know where people stand on the issues, but this does not work as well with math or other topics that does not fit within a ‘left vs. right’ or ‘good vs. bad’ dichotomy. Or debate about the new obesity drugs, in which arguments that weigh too heavily in favor of these drugs or in favor of ‘diet and exercise’ are downvoted for either being too dismissive of the side effects or lacking empathy.

The best people in the world at this never have bad opinions. There are a handful of such individuals who come to mind, like bloggers Dan Lu, Gwern, and Scott Alexander–and on the other extreme from prolixity to brevity–podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan. I read those bloggers, not only because they have interesting insights, but also they are effective communicators. Same for neoliberal-leaning bloggers Matt Yglesias and Noah Smith. Even if I don’t agree with their politics, admittedly they are among the best at communicating potentially polarizing ideas to a broad readership. Ideas poorly communicated are worthless, so learning how to communicate better–whether in long-form like Scott or extemporaneously in short-form like Rogan–is necessary, and I hope to apply it to my own writing. On the other hand, like trying to copy Tiger Wood’s golf stroke, it’s not the sort of thing that is easily reproduced. Experts have a way of making things seem deceptively easy. Or to put it another way: a perfect, well-received opinion is like sculpting a key that fits in a convoluted lock, but without seeing the inside of the lock beforehand.

Such writers are masters at reading the room and structuring potentially unpopular opinions in a way that is palatable. The first rule of writing is not make the reader hate you; this is easier said than done. Or also have invaluable and necessary attributes that help convey credibility to a skeptical audience, like high IQ or advanced degrees. Among the most important variables for how an opinion is received is not the soundness of the opinion, but the credentials or credibility of whoever espouses it, followed by the fit or suitability of the audience to the message. Because most people do not have exceptional or valuable credentials or characteristics that lend credibility, or have a built-in audience of supporters to provide social proof, they are starting at a major disadvantage.

Likability matters a lot and can help steer the crowd in your favor. Likability is hard to quantify in a scientific sense, yet invaluable. Joe Rogan is the master of taking even seemingly banal or prosaic observations and making them seem interesting to a lot of people, not because of any pretense of intellectualism, but the authenticity of he coveys of being an ordinary guy who is just looking for answers, who happens to also interview celebrities.

To be likable it’s commonly advised to ‘be a good listener’ and to be unpretentious and humble, yet this does not explain the apparent success and likability or aura of people who embody the exact opposite of those traits (e.g. Donald Trump and Andrew Tate), who have tons of followers, and evidently many people who do like them. Elon Musk has the most popular account on Twitter/X, yet ‘humble’ or ‘good listener’ are not among the most common adjectives one reaches for when describing him. I think it’s more like, if you have not yet built a reputation then you have to be humble. Once you gain a reputation for results, then you can skirt these rules to some extent, as Elon does. Or if you are incontrovertibly correct ( in the context of disputing a factual inaccuracy), then you can be more assertive about it. But if you’re neither right nor likable, then you’re in the worst possible place to be, as discussed earlier. This goes to show the difficulty or impreciseness of understanding likability, yet it’s invaluable. I think also some people exude certain negative vibes that are repellent, and it’s hard to quantify why this is, which also makes the problem hard to fix.

On the other extreme, Paul Krugman is an example of a poor communicator of ideas, by being too unlikable that it detracts from the substance of his arguments. The very mention of his name elicits a sort of mental block or dismissal (e.g. memes or jokes about the internet being as relevant as the fax machine) that makes it impossible to address his ideas at any depth, and I believe that this was his own doing. It’s one thing to believe you’re right based on the evidence brought forth, but it entirely another to lay claim to an unearned moral superiority by caricaturing your opponents in the worst possible light. Perhaps Dr. Krugman is more successful if we go by objective accomplishments or accolades, but the likes of Thomas Sowell, Glenn Lowry, and John McWhorter are far more effective communicators of their ideas. Colin Powell was not the smartest person in the room, but being an effective communicator was chosen to present the case for the Iraq War.

Correctness is necessary, as factual inaccuracies can not only undermine the premise of the opinion, but also erode credibility in the eyes of the recipient. Inaccuracies can also detract attention away from the rest of the message, which may otherwise be correct and reasonable, yet is doomed by the inaccuracy and making a poor first impression as a result. For example, it’s not uncommon on Reddit (but this probably applies to any community with a smart, discriminating audience) to see a comment or a post which tries to make a broader point but has inaccuracies, but replies which correct the inaccuracies but otherwise add nothing else to the discussion get more up-votes than the original comment (the kill-shot rebuttal).

Accuracy is easier said than done, as it’s hard enough getting the facts right, let alone having correct opinions. For example, during Covid, there was no consensus about the efficacy of masks or social distancing. There was conflicting or inconclusive data either way. We’re not even talking about opinions about masks, but just the facts and data if they work or not. Or if vaccinated people needed to wear masks or not. Or the effectiveness of vaccines at stopping the spread versus reducing mortality. The initial argument was that vaccines would reduce the spread, hence making masks unnecessary among the vaccinated. When case counts continued to rise, the goalposts were moved to reducing mortality. Recall the CDC initially advised (in a deleted tweet) against wearing masks. Or debate about the origins of Covid. The lab leak hypothesis was dismissed by the media and labeled on social media as ‘misinformation’, until 2021 when new information came to light and major media outlets took the possibility of a leak seriously, instead of just dismissing it as racist or a conspiracy.

Consider the minimum wage debate, which has been a hotly debated topic since the ’80s by academics, politicians, pundits, and the public alike. Republicans can cite studies showing how raising the minimum wage is harmful, yet other studies show no effect or even positive effects. Who’s right? Then you’d have to delve deeper; perhaps some of the studies have methodological errors, so they can be excluded. This process can continue ad-infinitum, but despite having more information, no one is actually closer to answering the question if raising the minimum wage is ultimately harmful or helpful.

Whether it’s gun laws, global warming, or masks, this is seen with many issues, in which having more information does not lend itself to epistemological clarity, and is why such issues remain controversial and debated. Having more information is only useful if it can soundly refute a false prevailing notion or silence critics, like that handwashing prevents infections, which is incontrovertibly true, but at one time was controversial.

Asymmetry is also working against you: people are much more likely to be offended by wrong, incorrect, or bad opinions than express approval of good ones. If your opinion sucks, it’s assured you will know about it either by negative votes or people telling you how and where you are wrong. It’s sorta like the opposite of Amazon reviews, in which all products seem to have 4-5 stars. It’s too bad Amazon cannot bring the honesty and transparency to its reviews that we see with online discussion. It’s not uncommon for a reader to latch on to a word or phase that rubbed the wrong way, ignoring the rest of the piece, or misconstrue something in the most negative light or put words in one’s mouth. It does not help also when some people are determined to not get the point. So this again comes back to being able to phrase the opinion in such a way as to minimize ambiguity and misconstruction as much as possible. This is why editors are so important; their job is to assume the role of the most critical reader to find any possible objection, logical inconsistency, or other mistake.

Improving the odds of correctness requires considerable research weighing both sides of the issue (unless you’re Joe Rogan, in which little research is necessary), which for most people is not worth the effort. It’s easier to just shoot off a tweet based on a hunch or a feeling, without having to do any effort to substantiate it. If you get called out on it, because it’s Twitter, you can just delete the tweet or block the person. On certain Reddit subs and forums, this can get you a ban, as you are expected to defend your positions with evidence.

Professional pundits who write for major media publications such as World Net Daily, National Review, or Forbes do not need to be accurate or humble, only that they check the necessary boxes (defense spending and Israel = good, student loan debt forgiveness = bad, etc.). The problem is that for everyone else, who doesn’t have the backing of a multi-billion-dollar publisher or conglomerate and the large built-in audience, connections, and imperviousness to criticism that comes with it, it’s sink or swim by the quality of the writing alone. Without such connections and a built-in audience, for content to go viral requires assiduous attentiveness to accuracy or else it will be torn to pieces or ignored by the very ‘influencers’ who hold the keys to virality.

In contrast to the brevity of Rogan, someone like Scott Alexander excels at composing detailed, well-researched opinions that are well-received by a large, ideologically-diverse audience. Such opinions if composed by someone who is not as deft with words or as attentive to the ‘opposing side’ and accuracy would likely be met with considerably more objection or even outright derision. Scott can write an essay praising capitalism, and even Marxists who disagree with the premise can still respect Scott’s willingness to entertain, rather than dismiss, criticisms of capitalism.

So this means one must occupy one of two extremes: writing lengthy, air-tight arguments backed by considerable data, as someone like Lyn Alden does, or have a knack for composing terse opinions that are incisive and pack a punch, like Rogan or Ben Shapiro. The latter is related to the the so-called ‘hot take’. The idea is to express an opinion that many people can relate to on either side of the aisle, is not obvious [if it’s too obvious, then it’s not funny or clever], and exposes the sort of logical inconsistencies of whoever the target is but without moralizing about the issue. Here is an example:

People will dismiss Joe Rogan's health advice because 'hE's NoT a dOcTor' and then go get medical advice from Bill Gates. 🤣

— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) May 1, 2021

Even liberals have to concede he has a point, or at least that he is not wrong.

On the opposite extreme are so-called ‘stale takes’, which tend to state the obvious or are unoriginal. The quintessential example is the hackneyed line, “dems are the real racists,” which is almost never voiced in sincerity anymore. Even as recently as 2016, careers were made from repeating this over and over, or at least variations of it or integrating such themes of perceived Democratic hypocrisy into commentary, as at the time it seemed so heterodox to contrast how the left, which aggressively positions itself as anti-racist, as either having racist ulterior motives or being inadvertently racist.

Survivorship bias is a huge problem in regard to having opinions. We only see those whose opinions succeeded in the marketplace of ideas. Stand-up comedy has this problem; the jokes you hear are those which survived the social filter. This is why authenticity and ‘being yourself’ is overrated. Sure, this advice works great if your ‘authentic self’ happens to also align with that which society deems valuable or confers status–not so much if it does not. Prisons are full of people whose authentic values were incompatible with society. Or you get fired. That joke you thought was funny–not only didn’t land–but now you ruined your career. It’s more like society likes the idea of creative or authentic people who are already successful, so there is less risk of ostracization by supporting those individual’s creative endeavors or outlets. As it’s said, nothing succeeds like success.

Survivorship bias can affect one’s perception of what type of opinions are successful in the marketplace of ideas. Seeing someone on Twitter who already has a huge brand who tweets about conspiracies or other fringe or populist stuff does not mean you should emulate that; you will certainly fail, as that niche is likely saturated. By contrast, Richard Hanania had rapid success starting in 2021, without connections, by being an anti-populist and appealing to smart people receptive to his center-right elitist contrarianism, yet are skeptical of mainstream right/left-wing narratives; for example, being pro-vaccine yet anti-woke. This was a niche that was greatly underserved compared to the MAGA-types and the ‘wokes’ that otherwise dominated after Covid, up until around 2022.

Similar to ‘dems are the real racists’, there was a time in the early 2000s, especially with Bush v. Gore and the September 11 attacks still fresh in people’s minds, where there was this huge, untapped market for political hacks who could phone in 500 words for World Net Daily. The overly partisan content of the likes of Krugman, Ben Shapiro, or Ann Coulter only seems viable today because of survivorship bias: the aforementioned individuals already have large brands and readership (e.g. having a long-running NYTs column) when it was easier to make a living with mass-produced partisan agitprop during the early 2000s, and this platform and readership has carried over to today.

For many millennials and gen-x, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was a portal to politics and a cornerstone of the proverbial watercooler. The 13 minutes of occasionally funny material in-between commercials and the concluding and oft-skipped guest segment in which Mr. Stewart with varying levels of success tried to glean some sort rapport with his beleaguered subject, was seen as the high-water mark of political satire at the time, along with The Colbert Report–a highly-successful spinoff in 2005 of a similar format. Jon Stewart’s post-politics style seemed so transgressive, but this in large part was due to Comedy Central, which ensured a captive audience in the millions and consequent social proof of having your friends also watch and discuss it. But unless you’re him, anyone else can now do it on Twitter for free. What I mean is, Jon Stewart was so successful because of his timing–by not having to compete against the masses of unpaid contributors on social media as we see today–in addition to the platform of Comedy Central, not because of anything uniquely special on his part. It’s not like he pioneered the genre of being cynical of politics, or was the only one doing that, or had the best jokes.

Academic-style writing works at getting content viral, without a built-in audience or huge platform, because well-educated people with large social networks are receptive to this type of content and writing style and are more inclined to share it. This is how Richard Hanania found success without much connections or a big platform in an otherwise crowded marketplace of pundits. By comparison, the conspiratorial, partisan, populist stuff is ignored by said influencers, so it does not go viral even if it seems viral when others post it. But this is because those pundits (e.g. Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, and Matt Walsh) already have huge platforms due to the backing of major media companies. Like Jon Stewart, it’s the platform and the associated social proof of having thousands of ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’ that makes the content seem good, not that it’s actually any good. Even the worst Taylor Swift song will be popular just by virtue of her overall success and having such a large platform.

Overall, professionals who espouse opinions for a living (e.g. comedians, late-night talk show hosts, and pundits) and have avoided accidentally self-destructing, make it look easy, but it’s anything but. And of course, a lot of luck, like survivorship bias as discussed above. Social proof helps a lot too (having a huge auditorium of fans laughing, and alcohol, will make even the worst jokes seem funnier). Having better opinions can be improved with practice and by piggybacking off of what works for others (anti-Trump jokes never seem to go out of style), but like doing your own surgery, it’s best left to the experts.