Steelman as the inverse of the Intellectual Turing Test
The Intellectual Turing Test (ITT) checks if you can speak in such a way that you convincingly come across as if you believe what you’re saying. Can you successfully pose as a libertarian? As a communist?
Lately, the ITT has been getting boosted over another idea, “steelmanning,” which I think of as making “arguing against the strongest version of an idea,” the opposite of weakmanning or strawmanning.
I don’t think one is better than the other. I think that they’re tools for different purposes.
If I’m doing the ITT, I’m usually trying to build empathy in myself for a different perspective, or build trust with the person I’m talking with that I grok their point of view. It’s for when I do understand an argument intellectually, but need to demonstrate to others that I also understand it emotionally and rhetorically.
If I’m steelmanning, I’m usually trying to build an intellectual appreciation for a point of view that seems foolish, but is held by somebody I respect enough to take seriously. I’m trying to do so for my own sake, in the hope that I might learn something new from the attempt.
I think ITT is most useful for practicing privately, as a method for systematically developing intellectual understanding of arguments. Practicing it publicly is somewhat useless (though a good sanity check) and requires a setup where claims so channeled are not taken as your own beliefs.
Unlike ITT, steelmanning is not aiming for accurate understanding, so it’s much less useful for intellectual understanding of the actual points. It’s instead a mode of taking inspiration from something you don’t consider good or useful, and running away with whatever gears survive the analogy to what you do see as good or useful. Steelmanning is great at opposing aversion to associating with a thing that appears bad or useless, and making some intellectual use of it, even if it’s not for the intended purpose and lossy on intended nuance.
Steelman as the inverse of the Intellectual Turing Test
The Intellectual Turing Test (ITT) checks if you can speak in such a way that you convincingly come across as if you believe what you’re saying. Can you successfully pose as a libertarian? As a communist?
Lately, the ITT has been getting boosted over another idea, “steelmanning,” which I think of as making “arguing against the strongest version of an idea,” the opposite of weakmanning or strawmanning.
I don’t think one is better than the other. I think that they’re tools for different purposes.
If I’m doing the ITT, I’m usually trying to build empathy in myself for a different perspective, or build trust with the person I’m talking with that I grok their point of view. It’s for when I do understand an argument intellectually, but need to demonstrate to others that I also understand it emotionally and rhetorically.
If I’m steelmanning, I’m usually trying to build an intellectual appreciation for a point of view that seems foolish, but is held by somebody I respect enough to take seriously. I’m trying to do so for my own sake, in the hope that I might learn something new from the attempt.
I think ITT is most useful for practicing privately, as a method for systematically developing intellectual understanding of arguments. Practicing it publicly is somewhat useless (though a good sanity check) and requires a setup where claims so channeled are not taken as your own beliefs.
Unlike ITT, steelmanning is not aiming for accurate understanding, so it’s much less useful for intellectual understanding of the actual points. It’s instead a mode of taking inspiration from something you don’t consider good or useful, and running away with whatever gears survive the analogy to what you do see as good or useful. Steelmanning is great at opposing aversion to associating with a thing that appears bad or useless, and making some intellectual use of it, even if it’s not for the intended purpose and lossy on intended nuance.