I suspect there’s a difference between steelmanning as in removing unnecessary assumptions or context, and steelmanning as in completely changing the logical foundation of the argument, just retaining the bottom line proposition, as our Roman seems to be doing. They are both valid, with the second one more vulnerable to the problems you mention, especially #1.
Also, either way, it would be a mistake to take the steelmanned argument and attribute it back to the source of the original argument. This seems to be the cause of your problems #2 and #4, maybe also #3 to the degree it’s an actual problem, and isn’t really necessary for steelmanning as I understand it. If you want to understand the person, or the culture, then you should mine their raw utterances for all the information you can get. But if you are looking to believe truth, then it helps to strengthen your opposition to the point where they can offer your current beliefs a proper fight, since you can’t depend on the opposition doing that for you.
I think to some degree there is a difference between the principle of charity and steelmanning. I’d guess your problems lie more with the principle of charity, but maybe I shouldn’t be too charitable in this case?
I suspect there’s a difference between steelmanning as in removing unnecessary assumptions or context, and steelmanning as in completely changing the logical foundation of the argument, just retaining the bottom line proposition, as our Roman seems to be doing. They are both valid, with the second one more vulnerable to the problems you mention, especially #1.
Also, either way, it would be a mistake to take the steelmanned argument and attribute it back to the source of the original argument. This seems to be the cause of your problems #2 and #4, maybe also #3 to the degree it’s an actual problem, and isn’t really necessary for steelmanning as I understand it. If you want to understand the person, or the culture, then you should mine their raw utterances for all the information you can get. But if you are looking to believe truth, then it helps to strengthen your opposition to the point where they can offer your current beliefs a proper fight, since you can’t depend on the opposition doing that for you.
I think to some degree there is a difference between the principle of charity and steelmanning. I’d guess your problems lie more with the principle of charity, but maybe I shouldn’t be too charitable in this case?