code

Strong Opinions, weakly held

Robin Michael

20 Jun 2026 • 2 min read

Translation

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Irrational confidence and glaze your opponents

I want to dig into this trite phrase that isn't insightful unless your insight is manipulation delivered with a smile.

This phrase popularized by large software companies management idiots i.e. Amazon, Microsoft, Google is not of value and is in fact a destructive and reductive take on expertise and ability.

In effect this is the facade that a manager wishes to project and hence why it is popular with corporate politicians to first confuse and then disarm the people that possess the deep technical knowledge and expertise to understand complex issues.

Let me explain in detail how this matches to the manager/manipulator. They in this case wish to maintain a semblance of control through guiding a conflict in their direction or favor. However they do not have the in depth technical knowledge to mandate this explicitly without exposing themselves to look a fool and being blamed later. They did get to their position and retain it by making bets without full knowledge and hoping it would pay off which it did therefore they have an abundance of confidence (misplaced or perhaps valid).

That means in this case they can use their practiced overconfidence to set a tone to extract doubt from technical experts who have not practiced this approach.

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In the same vein that police can lie and extract false confessions from suspects by simple insisting over that something occurred which did not. The implicit authority and confidence is enough to overwhelm the majority of the populations mental defenses as they are not actively thinking the police are being deliberately duplicitous coupled with the stress of being in a position with significant and permanent consequences for them that they encounter rarely while the police do this action and approach on a daily basis and a normal part of their operating procedures

That means the manager/manipulator will start the conversation with the above phrase to set the tone and then as experts weigh in and discuss approaches they will ask themselves to present and then doubt the work.

The proposals are then presented with doubt by the person with the most knowledge who then pokes at their proposal giving the manipulator the exact point to leverage against them in argument if they disagree and this is expressed as learning or conceptualizing the idea.

If they agree with the approach then the criticism is dismissed and or the alternative presenters are forcibly criticized on their proposals by using their own counterfactuals against them. This is the glazing or praise and endorsement phase of the above phrase.

In summary the person with the most practice and internal goal of control (manager/manipulator) is using their unearned confidence and authority to endorse and control the situation all the while the technical experts are debating and destroying their own valid and correct knowledge.

The appropriate counter to when this statement is brought in to frame thinking and discussion is

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I have many strong and correct opinions that I will share with you now

Here the technical expert is stating that they have confidence and are prepared to educate and enlighten you to understand why.

Translation

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