In regard to the points brought up in the article -- one could say there is a case for maybe what you could call "premature steelmanning" or "poorly justified s

In regard to the points brought up in the article -- one could say there is a case for maybe what you could call "premature steelmanning" or "poorly justified steelmanning" -- meaning that somebody is asking you to see their point from their perspective when minimal information or effort is used to justify the point in the first place. Like if somebody asked you to steelman the point that bigfoot exists. You ask for some evidence and they say that you are part of some conspiracy to cover up bigfoot. It is pretty unfortunate how challenging the situation around discussion of covid related topics has become -- but does make a bunch of sense since beyond the politics, many people were dramatically impacted by covid -- so asking people to have a rational conversation around things like keeping kids at home for a long time, losing their job, being asked to behave in certain ways in public -- is super hard to do without some sort of leadership to help move things in a positive direction. But then you end up with various leaders attempting to out maneuver each other, so it is super hard to deal with the situation.