But the Steelman usecase is never “I shall hereby tell you my Steelman of your views, listen well!” The usefulness of the concept is just that it reminds you not to strawman, were people actually unironically stopping conversations to make the other person listen to their Steelman?I’ve personally always used it more as an inner force pushing me towards “my interlocutor is not stupid, this easily demolished argument that I think they’re making is likely not the one that they actually believe”. It’s also a force pushing me towards actually modelling my opponent, instead of just barely listening to them enough to hear a weakness and then proceeding to try to demolish it.
But the Steelman usecase is never “I shall hereby tell you my Steelman of your views, listen well!” The usefulness of the concept is just that it reminds you not to strawman, were people actually unironically stopping conversations to make the other person listen to their Steelman?I’ve personally always used it more as an inner force pushing me towards “my interlocutor is not stupid, this easily demolished argument that I think they’re making is likely not the one that they actually believe”. It’s also a force pushing me towards actually modelling my opponent, instead of just barely listening to them enough to hear a weakness and then proceeding to try to demolish it.