Thread by @shrikanth_krish

When people want to criticize a thread or maybe one weak tweet in a thread of 80 tweets, they don't grasp the distinction between facts and opinions

They pounce on you saying - you are lying
When the tweet is often just an opinion of mine with which they are free to disagree

It is OK to say - your values are all wrong. I disagree with your conclusions

But it is silly to criticize an opinion by saying it is "false"

Opinions are never true or false

People counter to this saying - oh, there are bad opinions

No. Only when the facts underlying them are wrong

But opinions can be based on selective culling of facts

That's perfectly fine

It is precisely this bias that gives birth to politics

There is never an opinion that is completely objective

If thats how the world operated human civilization would not be a work in progress!

But history would have ended in perfection a v v long time ago

Politics is about difference in values, and biases in judgment

And this bias is a good thing

As a conservative I defend the need for a radical Left in any polity

Exactly as liberals ought to defend the need for conservatives and reactionaries

Let me illustrate with an example -

Suppose you walk into a classroom and you get asked how many students are there in the room

This is not a question of fact. But one of value

The answer can be 1, 2, 5, 20 right up to the 80 physical students who exist

Because the answer depends on how you define a "student"

A harsh teacher with high standards may say there are just 2 students, while a more lenient instructor may say all 80 kids are worthy of being called a "student"

There will and should be 81 different opinions in response to that question - ranging from 0 to 80