I don’t think we’re agreeing on definition: I thought steelmanning was necessarily making the argument better, not worse.
We’re talking about Feynman steelmanning, not me.
Feynman would have been steelmanning if she had made a worse argument to begin with yet he responded to it and a better one.
Right, and we’re talking about what true steelmanning would be in this case, right?
Yes. We both tweaked matters so that the example became a steelmanning. You changed what Richard said. I changed what his mom said. We both changed something, and after either or both of our changes, it was an example of steelmanning.
Right, except yours missed out on the whole “make it a better argument that you’re refuting” thing.
I don’t see how the following conversation is NOT an example of Richard steelmanning.
Mom: You could get bubonic plague!
Richard: (refutes that concern, and then...) A more reasonable concern would be my getting Tuberculosis. Here are the reasons I can’t...
As I said above, I’m not doing steelmanning here, so comparing this to what they actually said is irrelevant.
I don’t think we’re agreeing on definition: I thought steelmanning was necessarily making the argument better, not worse.
We’re talking about Feynman steelmanning, not me.
Feynman would have been steelmanning if she had made a worse argument to begin with yet he responded to it and a better one.
Right, and we’re talking about what true steelmanning would be in this case, right?
Yes. We both tweaked matters so that the example became a steelmanning. You changed what Richard said. I changed what his mom said. We both changed something, and after either or both of our changes, it was an example of steelmanning.
Right, except yours missed out on the whole “make it a better argument that you’re refuting” thing.
I don’t see how the following conversation is NOT an example of Richard steelmanning.
Mom: You could get bubonic plague!
Richard: (refutes that concern, and then...) A more reasonable concern would be my getting Tuberculosis. Here are the reasons I can’t...
As I said above, I’m not doing steelmanning here, so comparing this to what they actually said is irrelevant.