Strong Opinions Weakly Held

Chakraborty takes apart the Silicon Valley mantra "strong opinions, weakly held" — a principle for moving forward despite uncertainty — and shows how it quietly fails inside groups. The problem isn't the framing; it's that bad actors weaponise it, turning "weakly held" into "assumed true until you definitively prove otherwise." The essay walks through how groups can preserve the original spirit of the principle while installing the social norms (challenge culture, falsifiable claims, rotating devil's advocate) that stop it from becoming an excuse for unaccountable authority.