When people express opinions as facts it makes me wince.
Opinions are our best guess at something based on a set of facts. It is our interpretation of the facts.
Being able to distinguish facts from interpretation is a skill.
Elon’s Musk’s first principles idea is to examine interpretation and trace them all the way back to the facts that support them.
Many times our interpretations are based on others’ interpretations and when we examine those interpretations they have no basis in fact.
Ideally, your interpretations can be traced back to a robust set of facts such that others can reconstruct your interpretations based on the facts. When multiple people can come to the same interpretation of the facts, the interpretations are much stronger.
In today’s world, there are too many interpretations and not enough facts.