Besides the fact this article avoids giving any concrete examples, showing the author probably doesn't use the technique himself, it's going to fail when the opposite side cannot be convinced by rationality, which is most of the time.
Indeed, you cannot "patch up the weaknesses of the other side’s proposition" of someone supporting a sports team or a religious belief. Because there is no real argument, but rather some kind of emotional commitment.
However, if you engage in the exercise a lot, you'll notice that a huge number of debates are around such notions, where ego, identity, and feelings are more important than ideas.
It's certainly true for lots of political beliefs, but also many technical ones where your social situation depends on the result of the debates more than being wright or wrong (e.g: at work).
Not to mention when you are debating, it happens regularly you win not by convincing the other side, but by winning over the popularity contest with the audience of the exchange. This again, has nothing to do with the logic of the discussion.
So even if the technique works for, say, your discussion with your physicist or philosopher friend (in which you probably didn't need it anyway), there is really little value in it if it can't work in the situations with more at stake.
> it's going to fail when the opposite side cannot be convinced by rationality, which is most of the time.
As many people have noted, arguing on the Internet is a spectator sport. You don't need to convince your opponent, but by steel manning his arguments and addressing them, you have a greater chance of convincing the audience.
If there’s one argument counter to what you’re saying, it’s that the front pages of most social media sites are filled with clickbaits and shitposts. Including HN of course.
That is often my reluctance to use it, especially when talking to folks prone to confirmation bias. I'm not sure there is a way to convince people who only accept evidence that fits their existing worldview. It took me years and a lot of reading to finally seriously entertain the idea that the religion I was raised in could be false. Once I really opened up and stepped back it unraveled pretty quickly.
Yet being that open can be very socially costly, as it was for me. If I'd heard steel man arguments from opponents while still closed to inconvenient truths, then I'd just have accept them without critical thought. And any attacks on that steel man would have been dismissed with whatever was convenient. It devolves into Rube Goldberg levels of mental hoop jumping to stay in that mindset. Though if the alternative is strained relationships or losing ones church community then it becomes second nature, even unconscious.
Steel manning an argument is an extraordinarily powerful tool for rational thinking. I do it all the time, every time I encounter someone who holds beliefs I cannot understand. But I'm very hesitant to post the result of my steel-manning online, for this and other reasons. It's a private exercise.
It's also quite dangerous if you're attached to your beliefs. I rarely walk away from steel manning an argument without being persuaded to some degree into a compromise position.
> You don't need to convince your opponent, but by steel manning his arguments and addressing them, you have a greater chance of convincing the audience.
I try to ask myself: "would I make this argument privately?" If not, I probably won't reply publicly. (I often fail to make the right choice, however.)
> when the opposite side cannot be convinced by rationality, which is most of the time
Which possibility is the "failure" possibility here, that the opposite side gets convinced, or that the opposite side doesn't get convinced? I'd argue the opposite side getting convinced is the failure. This one singular exchange somehow managed to convince him of your viewpoint amidst his entire lifetime of experiences that led him to conclude the opposite.
I think it's the old rationalist way of thinking to think "If your mind isn't changed by a syllogistically correct argument, you must not be arguing in good faith (or otherwise can't be convinced by rationality)."
Everyone arrives at conclusions about various topics from the data they obtain throughout their lives through a continuous complex inference process they cannot communicate. Included in this process is a judgment of which sources are credible and which are less credible. Your friend is more credible than the guy who is showing you a study that contradicts your belief, for the purpose of changing your mind. (There are lots of studies out there so it is not hard to find one that supports your argument.) Trying to distill this complex inference process into a linear argument will necessarily lead to an inaccurate representation of how they arrived at the belief.
Doesn't mean everyone's right, though. Governments, cults, and friend groups are very good at shaping the data an individual receives. Even in these cases, you can see how based on the limited information that they do receive, it is quite reasonable from that internal perspective to believe what they do believe.
Arguments would be better if by "argument" we mean some effort, no matter how difficult, to communicate how you arrived at the beliefs you have, rather than a "well" crafted linear rational argument.
> Arguments would be better if by "argument" we mean some effort, no matter how difficult, to communicate how you arrived at the beliefs you have, rather than a "well" crafted linear rational argument.
Strong point, have you. How did you arrive at the belief that an argument strengthened by such effort, would be better?
To be clear, I meant that the conversation (the argument) would be a better experience for everyone involved, not the argument itself being somehow strengthened by it.
Nevertheless, I'll try to recall how I arrived at this conclusion.
The biggest influence was seeing for all my life, the left and right in America each claim the other is stupid, irrational, and un-convinceable by rational argument. When I was 16 it really did seem to me that the right was the irrational side here, but seeing everything come full circle with what's happening on the left these days, I realized it's kind of weird and unlikely that half the population, divided on a political line, is actually worse at thinking than the other half.
(See the bottom of this thread for a vivid example.)
Thanks for this. Indeed I can confirm the conversation is conceived to be stronger. That said, still I am not convinced that about half the population would not be worse at thinking, the weird it may be.
If the other side is not amenable to good faith rationale, its usually easily identifiable rapidly, say for the small population that are hyper trained for 'cloak and dagger' type operations, in which case you practice zero trust paired with due diligence verification.
The big value add to steel manning is that you can persuade yourself that your own ideas may infact be the inferior one and more concretely explain why that is the case to other people.
Oh but shoot, cats dont speak English.
Nevermind, dont try and use steelman technique against my cat Luna.
There's a difference between oral and written debate as well, and when a lot of people thinking about "arguing" or "debating" they are thinking of live impromptu discussion.
That's not a place to do detailed reasoning. Most people are bad at impromptu and have loads of shit habits. And live impromptu is not necessarily the right setting to shed yourself of shit habits either.
We ought to abandon an individualistic view of life. We are not individuals, but persons who are born into society, into social relations, molded by them, made in their image. Hierarchy and power are not meant to be fashioned into instruments for dominating another, but for multiplying the good.
When common truth is seen for what it is, a common good, debate ceases to be an act of violence and domination. It takes on a different meaning, a different purpose, namely, the truth and the arrival at it for the common good of the participants.
> We are not individuals, but persons who are born into society, into social relations, molded by them, made in their image.
I think this is a fundamental difference between the East and the West. It’s also why in situations like the pandemic, the East can band together with less friction whereas places like the US fall apart completely. There are few reasons for westerners to rally toward a cause in unison - the last time it happened was during the civil rights movement. Hard to imagine people coming together like that today.
I hear what you're saying. That individualism in the west makes us far less likely to engage in activities that are beneficial to all of society at some cost to ourselves.
It can seem like that's true based on the view that those in authority in the United States and elsewhere had correct information, and disseminated it as soon as they could.
However, the authorities in the US and in other countries did NOT properly use their authority, and acted in a manner that betrayed that trust. We in the West are far less trusting of authority, and this was reinforced by their failures during that public health emergency.
Trusting completely in Authority was the main thing we fought against in WWII. "Just following orders" isn't a valid excuse for war crimes.
On the smaller scale, we midwesterners, at least, band together to help each other out during the Winters when things get snowed in, and to recover from other urgent situations, it's deep in our DNA.
Agree with a few caveats. In suburbia some folks prefer to go buy a tool, extra vehicle(s), or call family far away than knock on the doors of a few neighbors.
Of course even that is mostly an illusion since suburbia is subsidized by food from rural communities and income from rich clusters.
It's also kind of unhealthy to live such atomized lives, at least for many people. Alone time is important to me, yet I've come around to appreciating friendly community of all kinds.
> For instance, all of U.S. politics fits neatly into just two political parties.
Except ... it doesn't.
There are American Marxists. There are anarcho-capitalist libertarians. There are ethno-Christian nationalists. And more ...
If it appears to "fit" into two political parties, that has more to do with what aspects of American politics appears in whatever media you see, which in turn reflects both the formal powers of those two parties, and their informal power (e.g. the Overton window).
I take your point, but "all" in my comment wasn't intended to be taken literally. In fact, your list could've actually been much longer, but the point is that all of these parties must find a way to express their preferences through one of the two predominant parties—or not at all.
>If it appears to "fit" into two political parties, that has more to do with what aspects of American politics appears in whatever media you see, which in turn reflects both the formal powers of those two parties
In practice, it actually does fit into two political parties, by definition and for exactly the reason you mentioned: they are the only two parties with the formal power to compel the media to express their will. How did that come about in a nation that supposedly embraces individualism?
I didn't intend to say that there are no individualistic beliefs in the U.S. I'm saying the idea that individualism is a dominant or defining characteristic of the U.S. in any practical sense is largely a myth. The overwhelming majority of Americans are happy to fit themselves into one of two political parties. That includes the party that fancies itself one of "rugged individuals", while its members adopt a laundry list of exactly the same beliefs.
> The overwhelming majority of Americans are happy to fit themselves into one of two political parties.
I don't know about overwhelming. Typical voter turnout for US presidential elections over the last few decades has been right around 50% (it ticked up notably in 2020). Many people who do not vote report disillusionment with both major parties as a significant reason for their choice.
I've heard similar. Of course, it's hard to know whether they'd also report disillusionment with ten (or whatever) political parties.
And, really, the idea of political parties is itself not wholly compatible with individualism.
But, the broader point is that the current state of affairs seems antithetical to the notion that individualism is a major feature of American society.
American "individualism" reminds me of all the people who call themselves "free thinkers", but managed to free think their way to exactly the same set of beliefs.
> all of U.S. politics fits neatly into just two political parties.
There are Anarchists, Communists, Marxists, wtf Antifa is (actually quite Fascistic in their anti-Fascist stance), neoNazis, the Trump faction, normies, leftists, progressivesm (the last 3 definitely kept out of the DNC), actual conservatives, the Religious Fundamentalists(of all religions), then the DNC and RNC duopoly, which is an influence pedaling racket that claims to represent the majority of US citizens, as a fig leaf of legitimacy.
The anarchists, communist and marxists don't count. They have absolutely no political relevance or power outside of social media. They're a no-op.
Leftists and progressives, when they vote, tend to vote Democrat, and never vote Republican. Except for that one time when they really wanted Bernie but we don't talk about that.
Antifa's politics would have put them solidly hard left, but like all black activist movements they were commoditized by white liberals, infiltrated by the CIA and rendered impotent and useless. They would either opt out or vote Democrat, simply because that's what black voters and leftists tend to do.
neonazis, trumpists, and religious fundamentalists, when they vote, tend to vote Republican, and never Democrat. Those groups basically form the modern Republican base at the moment.
>the DNC and RNC duopoly, which is an influence pedaling racket that claims to represent the majority of US citizens, as a fig leaf of legitimacy.
They do represent the majority of US citizens. Most US citizens aren't extreme enough not to have their views representable by the mainstream.
My citation is that I'm stupid and got them confused with BLM.
That said (and I'll take my lumps for it,) Antifa basically came up as an anti-Trumpist reactionary movement, so still leftist. Probably all wanted Bernie.
Person online acknowledges mistake. Noting the date/time as Internet history. Can't really say anything except "respect".
But, yeah, I don't know what Antifa is in the modern American context. They did seem to arise here as a reaction to Trump. But, oddly, it was referenced then as if they'd always been active in the U.S. I remember thinking, "did I miss something?"
Thereafter, they magically appeared as if on cue when the right needed to be spooked or "motivated", as in 2020. They were a convenient bogeymen.
Combine that with their anonymous nature, "fluid" membership, known alt-right hoaxes and impersonations thereof, and I'd bet they were more false flag than authentic, even if it was initially organic.
>But, oddly, it was referenced then as if they'd always been active in the U.S. I remember thinking, "did I miss something?"
I think that was mostly propaganda. They were "active" in the sense that some form of anti-fascist or extreme leftist movement existed in the US prior to Trump, at least according to the Wikipedia page, but "Antifa" as an identity is clearly post-Trump viral marketing. I guess it depends on how much value you put on the label versus the ideology.
>I mean, where are they now?
Where is the hacker known as "anonymous" now? Even QAnon seems to have mostly fallen off the radar. Have they disappeared, or does the media simply not pay as much attention to them anymore?
I always have to remember that consensus reality is manufactured by capitalist and state interests, it's a product like any other, and its purpose is to influence and monetize first, and reflect objective reality last. Events are always happening in the background that I'm not aware of, simply because it isn't commercially or politically viable to make me aware.
"Banding together" with neighbors, while conceptually related to forming government and taking cohesive social action together, is not really the same thing.
One of the primary arcs in human history has been to recognize the presence of "in-group" and "out-group" others, and, over the long haul increase the number of people considered to be in-group and decrease the size of the out-group.
Doing stuff with people clearly recognizable as part of your in-group is excellent and to be encouraged, but the hard work of making government work is related to figuring out how to function with your out-group(s) too.
>There are few reasons for westerners to rally toward a cause in unison
Disagree. It's just as advantageous for the West to rally together as it is for the East. But, there are those who are purposely dividing us for their own gain.
Except the West was able to develop a cure (multiple actually) whereas the East struggled. Sure we had some issues roling the vaccines out initially, but we resolved those pretty quickly. Not only that, we resolved supply shortages to the point where we could guarantee that everyone received multiple doses.
In the end, the West had far fewer mortalities compared to the East, so I'll take the West's way of doing things any day of the week.
There's some strong delusion equating a vaccine to a prophylactic. Going from high mortality to a minor cold is a huge win for any drug, vaccine or otherwise. Additionally that's how vaccines work. You still get sick but the illness is minor. They're not a force field.
A prophylactic is an advance intervention that prevents or mitigates the severity of disease. Vaccines in general, and all COVID vaccines, are prophylactics. Vaccines could be cures as well, but COVID vaccines are not.
Sufficient distribution of prophylactics for infectious disease can achieve eradication which, while distinct from a cure, is as good or better, but COVID vaccines haven't done that.
You seem to be confusing treatments with vaccines by lumping them under the same broad definition. A vaccine must be taken prior to contracting the disease, and will not work if taken after. This is exactly how COVID vaccines behave, therefore they are vaccines.
Now whether a vaccine is effective or not is a separate, almost orthogonal, dimension for consideration. No single vaccine is 100% effective, so we will always have certain % of cases where vaccines did not prevent the spread of infection and resulting adverse outcomes.
We have to be careful here. Individualism is not the same thing as respect for person. Individualism is a recent development in the West, specifically a tenet of liberalism in the tradition of Hobbes, Locke, and Mill. The liberal tradition cannot be understood completely except as a Christian heresy as it takes a properly Christian anthropology and distorts it by, in this case, exaggeration. So, in this case, while Christianity elevates the human person by recognizing his dignity as a rational and free agent, liberalism atomizes persons in a manner that effectively destroys or distorts their social nature, and in doing so, diminishes their humanity (Aristotle once famously said that a man who does not need society is either a beast or a god; I have my opinion about which tends to characterize our relationships today, and which tends to characterize our opinions of ourselves.)
Now, the East does not have this Christian respect for persons. Indeed, it tends toward the opposite error of subordinating the person to society and instrumentalizing persons and making them expendable for the "greater good". We see something like this in the old pagan societies in the West as well (though, as we often see, this "greater good" is a tyranny). In the traditional, pre-liberal Christian vision, still taught by the Catholic Church, there is a simultaneous recognition and respect for persons, and a recognition of Man's social nature and the common good which precedes him and toward which he has a moral duty. We are born into societies (the family is the first and most important society from which the entire tapestry of mankind is woven). And it is the common good: it isn't the "greater good" of society that permits the sacrifice of others, but a good held in common, and also by which many goods are had, including things like private property, which follows from the common good (liberalism has it exactly backwards, because it conceives private property as prior and proper to the individual first, and the common good as something grudgingly ceded by individuals for common benefit).
I've seen it used as an excuse to change the subject.
"Oh you wanted to say that X but you said Y, which is obviously wrong, so let me answer X instead" when Y was a perfectly valid proposition. What is "steel" and what is "straw" is subjective and open to manipulation. Jordan Peterson does this a lot, it's infuriating to listen to him.
I like the alternative that does sth like the ideological turing test. It goes like this:
- Alice says what she believes
- Bob says what he thinks Alice said
- if Alice disagrees - repeat from the beginning
and then the other way. Eventually when both sides agree the other person understands their point - they can start the actual discussion.
absolutely. most pointless arguments happen because of substantive lack of understanding of the other persons position, or just a general failure to engage in good faith. attempting to present someone's position for them seems like a good way to make the situation worse.
Sadly only works when applied in good faith. Some respond with what they wanted to hear, or their own straw man shell of your argument. Afraid I'm guilty of this sometimes.
Regular strawman is stealthily changing the thesis, this is doing it in the open and pretending you're doing it in good faith because you're so much smarter than the other guy.
Peterson has a public persona and schtick, based on what stuck after throwing things at the wall a while. Now he's cashing in on that. Diverging too far risks putting his earnings at risk, even if he doesn't consciously think that way.
Pastors often fall into these ruts. They often want to help. The toolbox limits them, audience expectations limit them, their own financial needs depend upon telling people things that won't make them too uncomfortable, and their (ancient) world view has to harmonize with a (modern) world that doesn't fit.
I like how the left thinks the center and right can’t do this, the right thinks the center and left can’t do this, and the center thinks nobody to either the left or right of them can do this. It is almost like every group equally stakes claim to correctness and reason for itself.
Righteousness at the expense of, and over others is a flaw in many forms of thinking.
Even if someone changes the jersey of the team they're on it doesn't change their ways or mindset without meaningful inner work of reflection + contemplation.
I don't think the problem is left/right, it seems to me to be more about ego/less ego. If interlocutors are more interested in playing with ideas than with coming to a preconceived conclusion, steel manning works well.
It also works in technical discussions. Being able to fairly explain an approach you disagree with demonstrates good faith, which is often returned.
Thomas Aquinas would beg to differ. All he does is steel man and attack opponents at their strongest points. The result is an invaluable corpus of rigorous arguments. He would have accomplished nothing by being uncharitable.
Whether your audience is receptive, that's a different matter, horse brought to water and all that.
Did we read the same Aquinas? My experience with him was that all he does is repeat his unjustified starting assumptions ad nauseum, then declares he has proven that god exists or whatever nonsense he was claiming.
I don't know what you read, but this is patently false and an utterly absurd characterization (not to mention the strange contempt dripping off the screen). Did you read Aquinas himself, or some characterization all too eager to caricature him? Or, if you did read him, did you read whatever you read in the correct manner and light to do justice to the work?
I don't know what "unjustified starting assumptions" you have in mind, but a stock caricature is the whole "Everything has a cause, so the universe has a cause" thing, which neither Aquinas nor any major proponent in the tradition has ever defended. I'll just link to a post by one such proponent instead of repeating or summarizing it here [0].
I think you’re right for some people on both sides, but I suspect that there are more opportunities to find better arguments than it might appear.
Bad arguments (particularly of the opposing side) tend to get a lot of attention though social media, making reasonable people seem rare. It’s easy to be dismissive and saves time.
"You may not have heard, but jus primae noctis is legal in America again."
One just needs to reduce bad ideas to more relatable, and provable facts.
The whole notion of manipulating and monetizing other peoples misery for profit is not a sustainable philosophy. Despotic regimes in many political wing extremes traditionally rely on the same sycophantic idealism... Inspiring the naive to surrender their own responsibility to their community, and grandchildren.
I don't really think modern disagreements are about conservative/liberal economic policy, but rather keeping people distracted while everyone gets robbed.
The article here assumes all parties are arguing in good faith, and that both sides have a reasonable starting position, or at least something that approaches one. But it's not possible to engage in good faith with the extreme sides of the political horseshoe, because that looks like this:
The left: good governance would be nice
The right: you should die and we will kill you when we get into office
You can't engage on those terms. They're either insincere or very sincere, and either way it's not solvable through dialogue.
The way your positining the left and right suggests that you're immune to the article's technique. I'd suggest a portion of good faith if I thought it was going to help but I'm at a loss here.
This is a good point because there is no example of violence around elections from the right in recent US history and even if there was it would be a failure of reasoning to acknowledge it.
Having trouble following the snark here. Why would it be a failure of reasoning to acknowledge violence, even in the mind of those on the far right? Are you suggesting they have a different definition of reason?
I was simply restating in different words _blk’s casual implication that KerrAvon has a cognitive deficit because they mentioned the phenomenon of election-related violence from the right.
If someone (for example) wants to look or feel smart in a discussion about logic, there’s a shortcut a person can take by casually calling others stupid for even mentioning anything upsetting regardless of whether or not the thing mentioned is real. It’s kind of funny when people invent a fallacy as if language that they find personally distasteful is categorically wrong (especially when the rebuttal is basically “Nuh-uh dummy!”)
I don't think it assumes that. If one is arguing against a fundamentally bad position, the Steel Man of that position will still be bad -- and by addressing that, you will have cut off evasions at the pass. Steel Man can be used to preempt Motte-and-Bailey fallacies by better defining the point being attacked.
All of this is true, and it's the roadmap to tautological soundness.
But, in these scenarios, it's rarely about tautology or perfecting the structure of your argument. Yes, you might win on a debate stage. But, you've not moved anyone.
I'm not on either side, and I think the only way to have some sanity going forward might be to find a way to compromise and meet in the middle somewhere. If anything else, the left cedes one issue they don't like in order to gain a positive one for themselves, or something like that.
don't forget the center, buddy. It's the center of politics in the USA that wants forever war. And they're in the center because they care about that more than they care about issues that matter to other Americans.
Can you elaborate? The US center seems pretty undefined to me, united only by absence of strong feelings and a propensity for the new shiny, loud, and/or charismatic.
Bill Kristol, Bret Stephens, Robert Kagan, Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton, Madeline Albright, Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, all the neocons and neoliberals, generally would consider themselves in the 'center' between the left and right, and at the same time have never seen a war or foreign intervention they didn't like.
It is an enormous misconception that because they aren't considered 'extreme' right or left they are more rational. Both the extreme left and extreme right in the USA are more anti-war than the center and it's a huge problem in US politics.
Indeed, you cannot "patch up the weaknesses of the other side’s proposition" of someone supporting a sports team or a religious belief. Because there is no real argument, but rather some kind of emotional commitment.
However, if you engage in the exercise a lot, you'll notice that a huge number of debates are around such notions, where ego, identity, and feelings are more important than ideas.
It's certainly true for lots of political beliefs, but also many technical ones where your social situation depends on the result of the debates more than being wright or wrong (e.g: at work).
Not to mention when you are debating, it happens regularly you win not by convincing the other side, but by winning over the popularity contest with the audience of the exchange. This again, has nothing to do with the logic of the discussion.
So even if the technique works for, say, your discussion with your physicist or philosopher friend (in which you probably didn't need it anyway), there is really little value in it if it can't work in the situations with more at stake.
Or to use a more scientific term:
I call BS.