These are my opinions. If you don't like them, I have others.

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1723759]

Context.

Comments

[andrewducker]

Of course, I posted that, and instantly wanted to click on "15 years ago" in the first question.

I don't expect to ever stop thinking, changing my mind about things, etc. But I mostly seem to be fiddling around the edges nowadays. Debating different voting systems rather than whether democracy ought to be thrown out altogether, for instance. It seems unlikely that I'll be changing my basic feelings about freedom of speech, or feminism, or religion, etc.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

15 years is my answer too. I was a twit at 17. =)

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

I clicked "25" even though I am 24. ;) This is because I was a bit confused and dogmatic at 20, and I would absolutely not stand behind a lot of what I thought then, and definitely know everything now. :) I think I have a much better process now, although I will welcome an even better one if I ever figure one out.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, maybe this means I should click "I don't, and don't expect to." I definitely have a stable and cohesive process of evaluating opinions, rather than stable and cohesive opinions themselves.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

And when did you stop beating your wife?

I'm happy with most of my opinions now, and with most of the opinions that I've held since I consider that I first had a vaguely stable and cohesive set of opinions. Sure, some opinions have changed, but I understand a) the context of the original opinion and b) the context of the change.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

(in other words, I cannot choose an appropriate answer for Q1 from those you've given)

[andrewducker]

In which case it would come down to when you first formed what you would now consider to be stable and cohesive opinions (possibly).

I certainly had some very odd opinions when I was younger. At age 5 I had an argument with a female doctor that she must be a nurse, because men were doctors and women were nurses. As she worked with my father (a doctor) I can imagine that there might have been...conversations later :-> And having grown up in an all-boys school with less than 1% non-white students I had some very odd ideas about all sorts of other things until I broadened my horizons and got some perspective.

[matgb]

This, basically--most of my current opinions are based on the same outlook I had when I was roughly 18, but have the benefits of large amounts more knowledge and huge dollops of experience.

If I had a stupid opinion at 18, it was because I didn't know better and now I do.

[simont]

Now I think about it, I don't think I've ever been big on having embarrassingly stupid opinions. There have been exceptions, of course, but I think that more often my failure mode has been not getting round to forming any opinion at all until long after I ought to have done. (E.g. it took me a long time to start voting in elections.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to hold my opinions a bit more lightly because what with the financial crisis and RaceFail, I've been forced to the conclusion that I knew a great deal less about things than I thought, and probably still do.

I also try to hang on to the idea that other people probably know much less about things than they think.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

Answers slightly restricted by options given of course ;-)

I feel uncomfortable about a lot of the opinions I held when I was around 13-15, which is a bit less than ten years ago.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I think I'd be happy with my opinions from any age. They are opinions of course!

[usmu.livejournal.com]

I don't feel uncomfortable with any of the positions I've held in the past. I don't necessarily agree with them, but I don't feel I've ever held one without good reason. There are still topics I'd like to dig deeper and discover what it is I think about the subject (most notably the intersection between ethics, determinism and law) but the basic groundwork has been done. I think that started when I was about 15 (34 now) and one my religion teacher mentioned there were people who think there's no free will. That got me interested and eventually kick started philosophical development. It's been going ever since.

[sttatus-quo.livejournal.com]

I keep hoping I'll finally grow up. New information always makes for different opinions as does aging. Fifteen minutes before I die I think I'll be settled on an opinion or two I'll never change. There won't be time. :)

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

I couldn't answer the first question because of the 'most' in it. That's a lot of opinions to change.

And I had trouble thinking of any major changes in opinion for the second question, then remembered I'd given up hunting, shooting and fishing in my early twenties on the grounds that such behaviour for the fun of it was kinda immoral.

No doubt there's others I've forgotten about, but generally my gut feelings seem to be right. (In my opinion, of course.)

[lizw.livejournal.com]

One of the things that happens to me during a serious bout of depression is that I start believing things that I otherwise would not - basically, I become more self-hating, which then at a political level reflects itself in a less accepting stance towards groups of which I am part, so e.g. less feminist. Because of that, my answers basically concide with the approximate time when I came out of the last such bout. I've done a lot of work on my mental health management since then, and I think it's now good enough that a repetition is unlikely, but obviously this is not the kind of thing about which one can be certain.

(I have seen similar patterns in some other severely depressed people, fwiw.)

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. Changes in mood definitely affect my approach to life.