It doesn’t seem like steelmanning is particularly useful for communication
or critique.
It refines ideas into something different, more interesting,
drawing attention away from to the original.
This makes it useful for collaborative truth seeking,
or just for your own thinking based on what you read.
A useful notion of steelmanning needs to be distinguished from
charity and rationalization.
Charity is looking into the reasons a person believes or says the things they
do.
The beliefs themselves may be ridiculous and not useful to understand,
but the reasons for arriving at them point to a real process in someone’s
mind and may clarify the context where the beliefs come up.
Ignoring the beliefs as something you won’t accept is different from
ignoring the process that created them,
and charity is about paying attention to the process.
The reasons for holding a belief can be different from arguments given
for it,
and there is also a question about the reasons for arriving at certain
arguments.
Pursuing charity leads to identifying errors in thinking.
It’s also the right point of view on weaponized words
that turn out not to reflect beliefs in the usual sense, but serve a purpose,
even without knowledge of the people utilizing the words.
Steelmanning, on the other hand, acts on the beliefs themselves.
It brings to attention improved versions of the beliefs,
versions that may be more worthy of discussion than the original,
non-steelmanned beliefs.
So it’s a way of changing the topic to something occasionally more
interesting,
and in that it’s similar to charity, but it changes the topic
in a completely different way.
Rationalization is finding a convincing argument for a predefined position.
When the position is incorrect, even slightly, the arguments to choose from
are flawed, and the task is to find the most convincing of them.
The flaws are mostly about ignoring some evidence and giving too much
weight to other evidence,
although if the audience is not too discerning,
other flaws may allow the argument to become even more convincing.
Steelmanning of a belief discards the problem statement for rationalizing it
by changing the belief.
Steelmanning of an argument for a predefined belief
is almost exactly rationalization.
But steelmanning an argument without requiring its conclusion to come
out the same may be interesting, even as it changes the topic of discussion.
It doesn’t seem like steelmanning is particularly useful for communication or critique. It refines ideas into something different, more interesting, drawing attention away from to the original. This makes it useful for collaborative truth seeking, or just for your own thinking based on what you read.
A useful notion of steelmanning needs to be distinguished from charity and rationalization. Charity is looking into the reasons a person believes or says the things they do. The beliefs themselves may be ridiculous and not useful to understand, but the reasons for arriving at them point to a real process in someone’s mind and may clarify the context where the beliefs come up. Ignoring the beliefs as something you won’t accept is different from ignoring the process that created them, and charity is about paying attention to the process. The reasons for holding a belief can be different from arguments given for it, and there is also a question about the reasons for arriving at certain arguments. Pursuing charity leads to identifying errors in thinking. It’s also the right point of view on weaponized words that turn out not to reflect beliefs in the usual sense, but serve a purpose, even without knowledge of the people utilizing the words.
Steelmanning, on the other hand, acts on the beliefs themselves. It brings to attention improved versions of the beliefs, versions that may be more worthy of discussion than the original, non-steelmanned beliefs. So it’s a way of changing the topic to something occasionally more interesting, and in that it’s similar to charity, but it changes the topic in a completely different way.
Rationalization is finding a convincing argument for a predefined position. When the position is incorrect, even slightly, the arguments to choose from are flawed, and the task is to find the most convincing of them. The flaws are mostly about ignoring some evidence and giving too much weight to other evidence, although if the audience is not too discerning, other flaws may allow the argument to become even more convincing.
Steelmanning of a belief discards the problem statement for rationalizing it by changing the belief. Steelmanning of an argument for a predefined belief is almost exactly rationalization. But steelmanning an argument without requiring its conclusion to come out the same may be interesting, even as it changes the topic of discussion.