I agree with this, and I’ve been fairly unimpressed by the critiques of steelmanning that I’ve read, including Rob’s post. Maybe I would change my mind if someone wrote a long post full of concrete examples[1] of steelmen going wrong, and of ITT being an efficient alternative. I think I pretty regularly see good reasoning and argumentation in the form of steelmen.
But it’s not trivial to contrive examples of arguments that will effectively get your point across without triggering, distracting, or alienating too much of the audience.
I agree with this, and I’ve been fairly unimpressed by the critiques of steelmanning that I’ve read, including Rob’s post. Maybe I would change my mind if someone wrote a long post full of concrete examples[1] of steelmen going wrong, and of ITT being an efficient alternative. I think I pretty regularly see good reasoning and argumentation in the form of steelmen.
But it’s not trivial to contrive examples of arguments that will effectively get your point across without triggering, distracting, or alienating too much of the audience.