Yeah, thinking overnight and reading more comments this morning has me updating that I shouldn’t have used the word steelmanning there, and I’ll update it soon (although I’m not 100% sure what the best term here is and not sure there’s a single term that does what I want).
Background:
When discussing this with other mods, I suggested saying that LW should be about collaborative rather than adversarial truthseeking, and other mods noted that there is a time for adversarial truthseeking even on LW and it’d probably be epistemically fraught to try and bake collaboration into the LW discussion DNA.
I ended up writing the three bullet points (address core points, invest interpretive labor, and being kind) as standalone points. It seemed important to distinguish the first two points from the last one. I searched my brain for a term that seemed to encompass the first two terms, generated “Steelman” and then called it a day. But, yeah, steelman has other properties that don’t quite make sense for what I’m trying to point at here.
I feel like there was a piece here that charity doesn’t quite address, where I actually _did_ mean something closer (but perhaps not identical to) steelman.
Elsethread, Vlad notes that steelman often ends up replacing someone’s argument with a totally different argument. This part is bad for purposes of communication, since you might end up misunderstanding someone’s position. But I think it’s good for purposes of goal-directed-discussion.
i.e. in my mind, the point of the discussion is to output something useful. If the something useful is different than what the author originally intended, that’s fine. (This is where “collaborative discussion” felt more right to me than most other terms)
Yes, I think the word ‘steelmanning’ is often used to cover some nice similar-ish conversational norms, and find it regrettable that I don’t know a better word off the top of my head. Perhaps it’s time to invent one?
Yeah, thinking overnight and reading more comments this morning has me updating that I shouldn’t have used the word steelmanning there, and I’ll update it soon (although I’m not 100% sure what the best term here is and not sure there’s a single term that does what I want).
Background:
When discussing this with other mods, I suggested saying that LW should be about collaborative rather than adversarial truthseeking, and other mods noted that there is a time for adversarial truthseeking even on LW and it’d probably be epistemically fraught to try and bake collaboration into the LW discussion DNA.
I ended up writing the three bullet points (address core points, invest interpretive labor, and being kind) as standalone points. It seemed important to distinguish the first two points from the last one. I searched my brain for a term that seemed to encompass the first two terms, generated “Steelman” and then called it a day. But, yeah, steelman has other properties that don’t quite make sense for what I’m trying to point at here.
It sounds like principle of charity is a better match for your intended meaning than steelman.
(not an official mod take, me thinking out loud)
I feel like there was a piece here that charity doesn’t quite address, where I actually _did_ mean something closer (but perhaps not identical to) steelman.
Elsethread, Vlad notes that steelman often ends up replacing someone’s argument with a totally different argument. This part is bad for purposes of communication, since you might end up misunderstanding someone’s position. But I think it’s good for purposes of goal-directed-discussion.
i.e. in my mind, the point of the discussion is to output something useful. If the something useful is different than what the author originally intended, that’s fine. (This is where “collaborative discussion” felt more right to me than most other terms)
Yes, I think the word ‘steelmanning’ is often used to cover some nice similar-ish conversational norms, and find it regrettable that I don’t know a better word off the top of my head. Perhaps it’s time to invent one?