There is a big difference in classifying a mental stance as opinion rather than fact compared to deconstructing positions if they fail to be facts. To destroy a hunch because it doesn't have a watertight proof is a road to incompetence.

I do think that opinions that have corresponding facts will get shadowed by them. Often an opinion is prefaced with "all things considered" which also suggests a line how you can address bad opinons, you can consider more factors.

Not convinced. An opinion is a heuristic or shorthand for a set of beliefs and preferences. The actual state of the world, and my preferences over potential future states are far more complex and detailed than fit in one human brain (or any other modelling substrate: the universe is it's own best model; no local portion of it can contain the whole).

"Bob Shepherd is a good politician" is a set of beliefs about how Bob acts and will act, and preferences about how you prefer him to act. It's far too compressed to express the detail of prediction and preference that you actually hold (which is too compressed for the actual eventual result), but it's sufficient to express the sentiment.

If you want more detail, use more words (though, you'll never have enough). The choice to summarize does NOT imply that the summary is all there is, not that it's sufficient for all purposes.

It sounds like you are suggesting that a person can simply decide not to have opinions. I find that doubtful as most people have little control over what goes on in their head.

When it comes to deciding whether or not your approach has merit, it would be necessary to analyze the actual likely effects from following it and what it means to follow it for a human.

I think you've come up with somewhat of a straw-definition of opinions. My preferred definition of opinions is "plausible bullshit". An opinion is a tentative stance, that (the holder ought to realise) can be easily moved by new evidence.

I don't think we should (or can) stop having opinions, we just have to take them a lot less seriously.

Opinions to me seem similar to the bayesian agent's quality of always being ready to assign a probability to any claim. There is no claim to which a bayesian cannot assign a probability. The probability will often be quite wrong, but they have to have one. They can't work otherwise. They can know how wrong the probability is and exercise the virtue of lightness [LW · GW] and update quickly when contrary evidence comes in.

I have an opinion about quantum computing. I'm not a physicist. I haven't spoken to a physicist about this opinion. But for now, I'd be willing to bet P 0.2 on quantum computing being a generally bad technology that will mostly just concentrate the power to break (some) encryption in the hands of a few governments, doing little for peace or science, which we would be better off without. I wouldn't be at all shocked if someone replied to this comment and took this opinion away from me with just one sentence and a link. I would thank them graciously. But until that happens, I must continue to have this weird opinion, because it is simply how the scales of evidence tip, right now, for me.

Hold your opinions weakly, and you get to have as many as you want.

I've gotten into the habit of ending my jokes with "imo" and trying not to say imo in any other context. I will maintain the pattern until everyone understands how unimportant opinions are.

So I usually use the word "opinion" to mean "belief".