Having a sufficiently strong opinion about policy may influence your decision whether you try to get into a position to influence policy in the first place. There is more than one “power” hierarchy, you cannot just get more powerful in general and then equally influence any sort of policy. Sometimes you’ll need to decide in advance.
Similar to a high school student discovering FAI and sufficiently caring to plan to get into a position to influence FAI research most efficiently.
I agree that this is a reason one might decide to have political opinions but disagree that this is in fact why people have political opinions. I think not having political opinions is a good default strategy and if at some point you find a good reason to deviate from this strategy then so be it, but I think many people default to having political opinions instead.
Having a sufficiently strong opinion about policy may influence your decision whether you try to get into a position to influence policy in the first place. There is more than one “power” hierarchy, you cannot just get more powerful in general and then equally influence any sort of policy. Sometimes you’ll need to decide in advance.
Similar to a high school student discovering FAI and sufficiently caring to plan to get into a position to influence FAI research most efficiently.
I agree that this is a reason one might decide to have political opinions but disagree that this is in fact why people have political opinions. I think not having political opinions is a good default strategy and if at some point you find a good reason to deviate from this strategy then so be it, but I think many people default to having political opinions instead.