A big list of underlying beliefs that inform people’s opinions

# A big list of underlying beliefs that inform people’s opinions * How much can you separate ideas from people? * What is your theory of government? * What happens when you give governments more power? * What is your theory of human nature? * Are people born tabula rasa and primarily molded by culture or are there strong innate tendencies. * [[John Locke]] leaned towards the former * [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] leaned heavily towards the later and said it was positive. [[Thomas Hobbes]] leaned towards the later and said it was negative. * Are people primarily motivated by measurable things? * Is happiness measurable? * What is inherent to someone’s nature, lived experience, or behavior and what is a choice? * What is your theory of history? * Do you believe that there are contingent events in history? * Do you believe that individuals create these contingent events? * Does history hold lessons about human nature or how different patterns turn out? * Should history inform how we treat different groups? Individuals? * What is your theory of technology? * Are you a technological determinist? * What are your theories of projects? * Can everything move faster by putting more effort into it? ### Meta Questions * The same question but at a systems level. ### Related * [[Just the Arguments]]  [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/A+big+list+of+underlying+beliefs+that+inform+people’s+opinions) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/A+big+list+of+underlying+beliefs+that+inform+people’s+opinions)