People With No Controversial Opinions Are Weird

I don’t know if everyone has had this experience, but back in high school, I learned how a teacher finds out if two students are cheating.

Take math class, for example. Let’s say we have the following question on the test:

3x + 5 = 20

Solve for x.

The correct line of thought is the following:

3x + 5 = 20
3x = 20 - 5
3x = 15
x = 15/3
x = 5

Now let’s say two students write the following:

3x + 5 = 20
3x + 5/5 = 20/5
3x + 1 = 4
3x = 3
x = 3/3
x = 1

Again, two students wrote this in the exact same way. Not only is this a specific error (dividing only a part of the equation by 5), but this is also a very specific way of progression, in that they both decided to skip the intermediary step of 4 - 1, but decided to explicity write the intermediary step of 3/3 (instead of just writing 1).

But let’s just focus on the error for this hypothetical scenario. Out of the dozens of errors that could’ve been made, they both made this same one.

Oh, and the teacher is now telling me that in fact, they made the exact same mistakes on all their wrong answers… what a funny coincidence. Oh and they’re sitting next to one another? Okay the probability of cheating is quite close to 100% now.

So, to drive the point home, there is only one correct answer, but there are many wrong paths. When two students repeatedly take the same wrong path, the likelihood of coincidence drops sharply.

Why though? Why is it that identical wrong answers give away that there is some copying involved?

Why does independent thinking leave different fingerprints?

To start, at least in math and the hard sciences, there is only one correct answer. There is one thing that ‘x’ is, there is one speed at which the ball falls, there is one formula for the water molecule.

Many students will answer x = 5 because the average student will converge on that (correct) answer. Receiving this answer from students gives almost no data on cheating; no signal.

However, you can be wrong in 10 different ways, even on a simple problem as the one above.

You could’ve been mistaken at the very beginning by ignoring (for whatever reason) the + 5 and doing: 3x + 5 = 20 => 3x = 20 => x = 6.67.

You could’ve made the mistake at the end by subtracting the 3 instead of dividing by it: 3x + 5 = 20 => 3x = 20 - 5 => 3x = 15 => x = 15 - 3 => x = 12

You could’ve subtracted the 5 on the left, but added it on the right: 3x + 5 = 20 => 3x = 20 + 5 => 3x = 25 => x = 25/3 => x = 8.33

You could’ve made the combination of the second and third mistakes: 3x + 5 = 20 => 3x = 20 + 5 => 3x = 25 => x = 25 - 3 => x = 22

Anyway, these are just a few examples out of dozens.

I was going to derive some statistics to show how unlikely it is for two students to repeatedly take the same wrong paths, but just very briefly:

If there are 10 wrong paths, and they are all equally likely to be taken (which is an oversimplification), then the likelihood for two students to take the same wrong path is 10%. The likelihood that this happens twice drops to 1%. Three questions: 0.1%. You get the pattern.

Now let’s add a small complexity in the form of a simple assumption: there is a wrong path that is a common “gotcha” for students on any given question, as 60% of students who are wrong fall into this trap. Then the probability of two students both independently falling into that same trap is:

0.6² => 36%

If this happens twice, the likelihood of this being by chance is 4.7% (0.36²). Three questions: 0.6% (0.36³).

And assuming two students keep taking this “commonly taken path”, the likelihood of cheating still grows exponentially. After only three identical wrong answers, the probability of this happening by chance drops is 0.6%.

And this is the most forgiving model possible. The best-case scenario for coincidence. It assumes the mistake is popular, predictable, and easy to fall into. And yet, repetition still makes coincidence extremely unlikely.

Anyway, if you didn’t get this part, no worries, we can still move on.

What I’m Getting At

If you don’t hold any “controversial” opinion, it is unlikely that you are thinking independently.

If all of your views line up perfectly with those of your family, your social circle, your community, and/or your favorite social media channel, then your beliefs are inherited, rather than developed. You are not reasoning, you are accepting and conforming.

And just to be clear, a “controversial” idea to you and your surroundings could be a totally normal idea to many others. I don’t mean “believing in aliens” or “9/11 was an inside job”. It could be as simple as being pro-choice in an environment where pro-life is the default.

Now pick a year. Any year. 1400, 1800, 1900, 1950, 2000, 2010.

Was society right about everything at any of those points?

Obviously not.

In 1400, disease was blamed on God because science was barely developed.
In 1800, owning slaves was considered normal as Black people were widely believed to be biologically inferior.
In 1900, women had no political rights because they were considered too emotional and irrational.
In 1950, segregation was legal because mixing races was viewed as destabilizing.
In 2000, homosexuality was illegal and socially taboo because it was viewed as immoral or pathological.
In 2010, language that’s now unacceptable was thrown around casually because people were less concerned with how language affected others.

So, looking back, we can tell that society didn’t have it all figured out at any point in the past. And I can assure you that they were all very confident in their opinions. But they were still all wrong about many things.

Now, what are the chances that today, in 2026, we have it all figured out and all our opinions are the “correct” ones?

I’m not just saying some news channel. I’m talking about you as an individual.

Extremely unlikely. At this very moment, there is something you believe deeply that has fundamental issues, that in the future (because in hindsight everything is so obvious), your grandchildren will frown upon you.

Now ask yourself this question:

What are the chances that you, an individual, hold ALL the exact same beliefs as a particular group of people? And since we have already established that everyone makes mistakes, what are the chances that you are INDEPENDENTLY committing all the same mistakes as that group?

And what does that say about you?

It says that you copied. Some answers (maybe even most) you got right, but some you will inevitably get wrong, just like your “group”.

I’m just saying I’d rather come to a wrong answer, but have copied no one, than to have copied a group, felt a sense of belonging to that group, and copied their thoughts, even if their (and by extension mine) conclusions are right. I want to have my own thoughts. My own line of reasoning. My own conclusions.

If I meet someone who has all of my same stances (not having an opinion on something is also a stance), then I will be incredibly weirded out, and will keep probing until I find the dissimilarity. Because there has to be one. The world is too complex, too layered, too full of hidden variables for two independently thinking people to align perfectly.

It’s okay to not have it all figured out at the age of 20. 30. 40. 50. 60. 70. 80. 90. Chill.

You don’t need to have an opinion on every single topic. You don’t need to be involved in everything. There are way too many topics in the world. And this is not a simple algebra problem. This involves humans. One human is already so complex. To figure out how to deal with millions… be humble. Don’t be so attached to your thoughts… especially if they’re not yours.