101–110 of 131 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of understanding your opponent’s arguments/beliefs better than they do is a centuries old technique.
True. And yet here we are discussing an ancient conversational staple as if it were a novelty, because it is novel to many. How did this come to be?
Every generation thinks they are doing something novel until they are confronted with history.
My first thought was, things have gotten so bad with public discourse, that we need a new word for arguing respectfully and in good faith, as opposed to whatever sad state of affairs now passes as "normal" discourse.
Honestly I see "steelmanning" as an emergent property of a completely broken discourse in the first place. The whole concept derives from the idea that we need specific terminology for when we're going to actually discuss things in a reasonable manner. It's basically a response to a group of public intellectuals who have emerged on the internet that spend more time building their brand and dunking on their opponents…
The equivocation in the current top comment thread stems from that ego problem. People use words they don't understand that they think sound smart. When confronted by more effective & but less smart words, they're too lazy and prideful to switch so they instead pretend they mean the same thing.
This is argument about argumentation, but it's worth examining what's wrong with the overall picture: Empathy is obviously not empathy if you make a spectacle of bending over backwards to look empathetic. It's an insulting act of selfishness unless the other person feels they've earned it. I think Jesus said something like this, but I can't recall it directly, since I'm drunk. To be an honest person you have to admit…
uhm, no they won't, because my well-being depends on your well-being.
showing empathy is in itself a selfish act, because i want you to show empathy for me too, but i can't expect that if i am not showing empathy myself.
so there is no tension at all. the tension may be between prioritizing your needs over mine, but even if i prioritize my own needs i can and do still empathize with yours.
i can't even properly evaluate what should be prioritized without emphasizing. it is necessary to understand the consequences of prioritizing my needs over yours.
the end result is some kind of balance. how that balance looks like depends on our relationship and the nature of the conflict.
The OP irritated me so much that I wrote a 2200 word comment. I'll spare the world that (and my steelmanning of the OPs position) to just say that I think the discussion of "steelmanning" here is a pretense in order to continue an argument from his comments as an abstraction , and with that an excuse to use ad hominem and vague associative arguments that wouldn't normally be seen as constructive. It's a sign of weakn…
I agree it's nothing to do with kindness but I disagree that it's (entirely) to do with making your arguments look strong and convincing. I think it's a good practice because (in my experience) people tend towards strawmanning even if they don't mean to. We're so used to adversarial debates where you're trying to "win" the argument by presenting the opponent's argument in a poor light that it's helpful to consciously avoid that by attempting the opposite. If we don't then arguments tend to degrade rather quickly.
The comments to the original article contains a good example of a common argument pattern. Someone makes a point about antibiotics not being a miracle drug and one reply is "So you’ll just dismiss millions and millions of years of life saved, untold suffering prevented, and vast economic and qualify [sic] of life benefits by virtue of availability of antibiotics because antibiotics aren’t perfect". It feels unlikely anyone would dismiss millions of years of life being saved so if they've been in anyway ambiguous we should apply the principle of charity (which is not directly to charity in the normal sense) and assume they don't mean that.
Honestly I see "steelmanning" as an emergent property of a completely broken discourse in the first place. The whole concept derives from the idea that we need specific terminology for when we're going to actually discuss things in a reasonable manner. It's basically a response to a group of public intellectuals who have emerged on the internet that spend more time building their brand and dunking on their opponents…
This should be the top comment. The utility of the word "steelman" is already mostly covered by words like "Devil's advocate". Instead, the real purpose of the term is to signal "look at how smart I am, I'm putting in way more effort than anyone else". Posture first, discuss second. The equivocation in the current top comment thread stems from that ego problem. People use words they don't understand that they think s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True. And yet here we are discussing an ancient conversational staple as if it were a novelty, because it is novel to many. How did this come to be?
Because of death. :) Every generation thinks they are doing something novel until they are confronted with history.
I'm not sure that what Alexander was doing in that one instance nor what this author is talking about are "steelmanning". If in order to "steelman" your argument I also have to accept every point where you beg-the-question then where can there possibly be any argument? I don't think I have to accept the argument that every fetus has an immortal soul to steelman a pro-life position. But I do however have to accept tha…
> If in order to "steelman" your argument I also have to accept every point where you beg-the-question then where can there possibly be any argument? Yes — when you’re presenting the “steelman” version of someone else’s argument, you have to use their premises. You outline two distinct arguments in your question: 1. A secular pro-life argument 2. A religious pro-life argument Substituting a secular for religious argu…
So we can sit around looking at our lovely steelman like it's a yard sculpture but it really hasn't done us any good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because of death. :) Every generation thinks they are doing something novel until they are confronted with history.
Does this need to be rediscovered every generation, and has it been in past generations? Could this be taught in standard curriculum as a core value instead?