Isn’t that a necessary part of steelmanning an argument you disagree with? My understanding is that you strengthen all the parts that you can think of to strengthen, but ultimately have to leave in the bit that you think is in error and can’t be salvaged.
Once you’ve steelmanned, there should still be something that you disagree with. Otherwise you’re not steelmanning, you’re just making an argument you believe in.
Part of the point of steelmanning, as I understand it, is to see whether there is a bit that can’t be salvaged. If you correct the unnecessary flaws and find that the strengthened argument is actually correct (and, ostensibly, change your mind), it seems appropriate to still call that process steelmanning. Or rather, even if it’s not appropriate, people seem to keep using it like that anyway.
If you take a position on virtually any issue that’s controversial or interesting, there will be weaknesses to your position. Actual weaknesses. I thought the purpose of steelmanning was to find and acknowledge those weaknesses, not merely give the appearance of acknowledging weaknesses. If that’s not right, then I think we need a new word for the latter concept because that one seems more useful and truth seeking. If you’re stretching things beyond the domains of validity and using tricks, it sounds awfully like you’re setting up straw men, at the very least in your own mind. Seems more debate club than rationality.
Yes, it would be a suit of armour stuffed with straw. On the other hand, I find nothing to disagree with in the actual arguments presented for inefficiency. This article could stand on its own without the steelman framing. All of its arguments can also be found elsewhere with their authors standing behind them instead of beside them.
Taleb has pointed out the efficiency-resiliency tradeoff.
The efficiency of kidnapping people because they are made of atoms we can put to better use has frequently been frowned on here.
The danger of effective government of whatever stripe has been commented on widely (fictionally in Frank Herbert’s stories of Jorj X. McKie of the Bureau of Sabotage), even if it isn’t a mainstream idea.
People seem to acknowledge the practical impossibility of building an actual global utility function.
That it becomes a totalitarian morality admitting no revision has been pointed out e.g. by C.S. Lewis. I have in mind where he says that every self-professed new morality turns out to be merely an elevation of one of the many components of what he calls the Tao into the only principle.
In a humorous vein, I recall Mark Twain’s story of the old woman whose health was failing:
So I said she must stop swearing and drinking, and smoking and eating for four days, and then she would be all right again. And it would have happened just so, I know it; but she said she could not stop swearing, and smoking, and drinking, because she had never done those things. So there it was. She had neglected her habits, and hadn’t any. Now that they would have come good, there were none in stock. She had nothing to fall back on. She was a sinking vessel, with no freight in her to throw over [to] lighten ship withal.
Well, as a hypothetical apostasy then? And I’m pretty sure you can give arguments you don’t agree with a steelman (see Yvain’s steelmanning of timecube).
I don’t think it’s a steelman if you extend the argument in a way that you don’t actually agree with.
Isn’t that a necessary part of steelmanning an argument you disagree with? My understanding is that you strengthen all the parts that you can think of to strengthen, but ultimately have to leave in the bit that you think is in error and can’t be salvaged.
Once you’ve steelmanned, there should still be something that you disagree with. Otherwise you’re not steelmanning, you’re just making an argument you believe in.
Part of the point of steelmanning, as I understand it, is to see whether there is a bit that can’t be salvaged. If you correct the unnecessary flaws and find that the strengthened argument is actually correct (and, ostensibly, change your mind), it seems appropriate to still call that process steelmanning. Or rather, even if it’s not appropriate, people seem to keep using it like that anyway.
If you take a position on virtually any issue that’s controversial or interesting, there will be weaknesses to your position. Actual weaknesses. I thought the purpose of steelmanning was to find and acknowledge those weaknesses, not merely give the appearance of acknowledging weaknesses. If that’s not right, then I think we need a new word for the latter concept because that one seems more useful and truth seeking. If you’re stretching things beyond the domains of validity and using tricks, it sounds awfully like you’re setting up straw men, at the very least in your own mind. Seems more debate club than rationality.
A much better phrasing of what I was thinking.
But I think Kaj approach has some merit as well—we should find a name for “extracting the best we can from opposing arguments”.
Yes, it would be a suit of armour stuffed with straw. On the other hand, I find nothing to disagree with in the actual arguments presented for inefficiency. This article could stand on its own without the steelman framing. All of its arguments can also be found elsewhere with their authors standing behind them instead of beside them.
Taleb has pointed out the efficiency-resiliency tradeoff.
The efficiency of kidnapping people because they are made of atoms we can put to better use has frequently been frowned on here.
The danger of effective government of whatever stripe has been commented on widely (fictionally in Frank Herbert’s stories of Jorj X. McKie of the Bureau of Sabotage), even if it isn’t a mainstream idea.
People seem to acknowledge the practical impossibility of building an actual global utility function.
That it becomes a totalitarian morality admitting no revision has been pointed out e.g. by C.S. Lewis. I have in mind where he says that every self-professed new morality turns out to be merely an elevation of one of the many components of what he calls the Tao into the only principle.
In a humorous vein, I recall Mark Twain’s story of the old woman whose health was failing:
Well, as a hypothetical apostasy then? And I’m pretty sure you can give arguments you don’t agree with a steelman (see Yvain’s steelmanning of timecube).