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The problem is that steelmanning is only useful in one kind of argument (the kind in which each party would rather discover the correct answer than "win"), whic

The problem is that steelmanning is only useful in one kind of argument (the kind in which each party would rather discover the correct answer than "win"), which is increasingly rare compared to the other kind (in which each party already knows their opponent to be evil, deluded, or both). Debates that include an audience are almost without exception the latter sort, in which steelmanning is worse than useless.

oconnor663 4y ago
> Debates that include an audience are almost without exception the latter sort I think a big exception is debate societies that meet regularly, where the folks doing the debating actually know each other and care about their long-term relationships with each other. But yeah, this isn't exactly a widespread hobby.
gpm 4y ago
Even in debates seeking truth, I think it's only an effective technique in a small subset. It doesn't work if the disagreement is because you're both just aware of a different set of facts. It doesn't work if the disagreement is because you have different fundamental goals. It doesn't work if the "debate" is actually a misunderstanding where you and someone else understand a term to mean different things. Amongst truth seeking debates, I feel like most casual ones end up falling into one of the above categories (more "academic" debates, the kind you find in philosophy classes, might be less likely too, because topics you can usefully debate are the ones actively discussed in those contexts). Also I'm not sure I agree that debates seeking truth are rare, they are just publicly broadcast less frequently so you come across more of them. Certainly I debate close friends and family matters on a fairly regular basis (for fun and learning).
lolinder 4y ago
In my life the "tenth man" approach the article mentions and links to is more often what's called for. The theory is essentially to refuse to participate in an echo chamber. If everyone in a group is feeding off each other in bashing an unpopular viewpoint, then you represent that viewpoint as strongly as possible rather than joining in. I've used this technique with a lot of success, even in some pretty aggressive and opinionated groups. At a minimum it diffuses the echo chamber and the conversation turns to other topics, but I've also had good conversations come from it, where people leave understanding the other side better than they did before. Because you're representing a party that is not present, you're less likely to end up making them feel patronized than with steelmanning, but it has a similar effect on your own understanding. It's even better if you're able to help someone else see the other perspective, too!
verdagon 4y ago
Steelmanning is actually pretty effective against hostile opponents. Once you both agree to what your opponent is claiming, you can identify and ask about all the assumptions that lead up to that claim, and from there, you can discuss and dismantle any false assumptions. It's a way to "shortcut past the nonsense" and get straight to the root differences.
- ineptech 4y ago
  That only works if your opponent is playing along. I don't mean they have to be nice or civil, but they do have to be consistent. There's no point trying to e.g. establish shared definitions for a key term if your opponent is not bound by it. At best, steelmanning might help you realize you're talking to someone who is not acting in good faith slightly faster.
  - verdagon 4y ago
    If you ask your opponent, "Just so I understand, are you saying ___?", they'll usually help you understand what they're claiming. People generally like to be heard and understood, even if they violently disagree with you. There's the occasional troll who is intentionally wasting your time, but I find that to be pretty rare, especially on HN. People are most often just bad at communication, not malicious.
- swatcoder 4y ago
  Most non-academic arguments resolve to value differences, not false assumptions. And people often feel very vulnerable when they feel like somebody’s making an effort to expose and challenge their values. Much of the time, the nonsense is there to keep things civil: you rehash tired tropes to talk around the issue for a while, get tired, and then somebody buys the next round of beers.
  - verdagon 4y ago
    Well put, I've also had it boil down to value differences pretty often. The nice thing about steelmanning is that you can identify those value differences more quickly. One time I was in an argument that was looking to get pretty heated, but with steelmanning I was able to find the underlying value difference, point out that we disagreed on it, and then we just kind of sat there in awkward silence for a second and moved on to play Starcraft. It was a good day.
rufus_foreman 4y ago
Steelmanning is most useful in one kind of argument, the argument that goes on when you, I mean you, encounter an argument that you consider wrong and dangerous, and threatening to your core values. There are a couple reactions you can have to that.
ianai 4y ago
In those situations the adage that arguing against bad faith arguments is self defeating. To outside observers it just makes the bad faith arguments look credible.
colmmacc 4y ago
That might be true of politics and cable news, but I think active listening and being able to succinctly restate someone else's line of reasoning, position, feelings, or argument is incredibly useful in normal life. I find myself doing it several times a day, mostly in business meetings, but in personal things too. I don't think of it as a debate technique, but just a way to show to a person that you really are listening to them. That can be very effective. It's a great rule of behavior even for small disagreements or suggestions.
JoshTriplett 4y ago
It's also not especially useful in the type of argument in which your opponent is simply factually incorrect and not interested in changing that; you can't steelman something where step 1 of any possible line of argument is false. But I've found it a very effective approach when having a conversation about the best solution to a problem, for instance. I also like the double crux technique: collaborate to find the crux for each party, the most important point upon which the argument rests, such that if it turned out to not hold you would change your mind. Turns an argument into a collaborative exploration.
- wussboy 4y ago
  It may be useful in that if even step one is a no go, at least you’ll find out early that discussion is useless and you can spend your time in others ways I used to argue religion on Facebook a lot (I know, I know). But I stopped accepting invitations to debate when I started asked my opponents to agree before hand that they would agree to change their minds if I was right (as I agreed to change if I was wrong). When I realized they weren’t interested in learning anything, the point of debate went away.
  - akavel 4y ago
    Who was to be the arbiter in the debate, i.e. the person deciding which one of you were right?
- dataflow 4y ago
  > I also like the double crux technique: collaborate to find the crux for each party, the most important point upon which the argument rests, such that if it turned out to not hold you would change your mind. Turns an argument into a collaborative exploration. In theory it's nice. In practice this doesn't get you anywhere nearly as often as you'd hope. Because IRL disagreements are almost often over the magnitude of a problem, not over their existence. Trivial example for the sake of illustration: Teammate 1: {writes some code} Teammate 2: "That's hard to read, can you do it {this} way? It's much easier to understand the code that way if we find a bug." Teammate 1: "That's too brittle though, can we do it {that} way? That way it's much less likely for the code to break in the first place." Both sides can understand each others' positions perfectly fine. They just think their own concerns/priorities are a bigger deal than those of the other person. Same goes with many political and other issues; this was just a silly example to illustrate.
thrown_22 4y ago
It's even worse online where just silencing your opponent is considered a victory. HN was particularly bad about this with post flagging a few months ago. It was weaponized to hide posts which _someone_ disagreed with, even if the post was later restored the hour to twelve it was offline was enough to astroturf debates. I'm seeing less of this since GP started getting his own posts flagged. Shame Dang didn't do his job till his boss told him to.
adastra22 4y ago
With very few exceptions, nobody is evil in their own head-canon. If you think the other party is evil, deluded, or both, then in my experience that is a definite indication that you do not understand the opposing viewpoint very well, and could benefit from steel-manning.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bick_nyers 4y ago
In arguments in which the opponent is more concerned with winning as opposed to discovering the correct answer, I don't believe any strategy is particularly effective. That being said, what steelmanning can offer, is to change the nature of the argument. If done correctly, you can sometimes de-escalate your opponent enough in order to tap into their humanity, and make the argument not about winning. Steelmanning is just a logical way of empathizing with your opponent.

oconnor663 4y ago

> Debates that include an audience are almost without exception the latter sort I think a big exception is debate societies that meet regularly, where the folks doing the debating actually know each other and care about their long-term relationships with each other. But yeah, this isn't exactly a widespread hobby.

gpm 4y ago

Even in debates seeking truth, I think it's only an effective technique in a small subset. It doesn't work if the disagreement is because you're both just aware of a different set of facts. It doesn't work if the disagreement is because you have different fundamental goals. It doesn't work if the "debate" is actually a misunderstanding where you and someone else understand a term to mean different things. Amongst truth seeking debates, I feel like most casual ones end up falling into one of the above categories (more "academic" debates, the kind you find in philosophy classes, might be less likely too, because topics you can usefully debate are the ones actively discussed in those contexts). Also I'm not sure I agree that debates seeking truth are rare, they are just publicly broadcast less frequently so you come across more of them. Certainly I debate close friends and family matters on a fairly regular basis (for fun and learning).

lolinder 4y ago

In my life the "tenth man" approach the article mentions and links to is more often what's called for. The theory is essentially to refuse to participate in an echo chamber. If everyone in a group is feeding off each other in bashing an unpopular viewpoint, then you represent that viewpoint as strongly as possible rather than joining in. I've used this technique with a lot of success, even in some pretty aggressive and opinionated groups. At a minimum it diffuses the echo chamber and the conversation turns to other topics, but I've also had good conversations come from it, where people leave understanding the other side better than they did before. Because you're representing a party that is not present, you're less likely to end up making them feel patronized than with steelmanning, but it has a similar effect on your own understanding. It's even better if you're able to help someone else see the other perspective, too!

verdagon 4y ago

Steelmanning is actually pretty effective against hostile opponents. Once you both agree to what your opponent is claiming, you can identify and ask about all the assumptions that lead up to that claim, and from there, you can discuss and dismantle any false assumptions. It's a way to "shortcut past the nonsense" and get straight to the root differences.

ineptech 4y ago
That only works if your opponent is playing along. I don't mean they have to be nice or civil, but they do have to be consistent. There's no point trying to e.g. establish shared definitions for a key term if your opponent is not bound by it. At best, steelmanning might help you realize you're talking to someone who is not acting in good faith slightly faster.
- verdagon 4y ago
  If you ask your opponent, "Just so I understand, are you saying ___?", they'll usually help you understand what they're claiming. People generally like to be heard and understood, even if they violently disagree with you. There's the occasional troll who is intentionally wasting your time, but I find that to be pretty rare, especially on HN. People are most often just bad at communication, not malicious.
swatcoder 4y ago
Most non-academic arguments resolve to value differences, not false assumptions. And people often feel very vulnerable when they feel like somebody’s making an effort to expose and challenge their values. Much of the time, the nonsense is there to keep things civil: you rehash tired tropes to talk around the issue for a while, get tired, and then somebody buys the next round of beers.
- verdagon 4y ago
  Well put, I've also had it boil down to value differences pretty often. The nice thing about steelmanning is that you can identify those value differences more quickly. One time I was in an argument that was looking to get pretty heated, but with steelmanning I was able to find the underlying value difference, point out that we disagreed on it, and then we just kind of sat there in awkward silence for a second and moved on to play Starcraft. It was a good day.

rufus_foreman 4y ago

Steelmanning is most useful in one kind of argument, the argument that goes on when you, I mean you, encounter an argument that you consider wrong and dangerous, and threatening to your core values. There are a couple reactions you can have to that.

ianai 4y ago

In those situations the adage that arguing against bad faith arguments is self defeating. To outside observers it just makes the bad faith arguments look credible.

colmmacc 4y ago

That might be true of politics and cable news, but I think active listening and being able to succinctly restate someone else's line of reasoning, position, feelings, or argument is incredibly useful in normal life. I find myself doing it several times a day, mostly in business meetings, but in personal things too. I don't think of it as a debate technique, but just a way to show to a person that you really are listening to them. That can be very effective. It's a great rule of behavior even for small disagreements or suggestions.

JoshTriplett 4y ago

It's also not especially useful in the type of argument in which your opponent is simply factually incorrect and not interested in changing that; you can't steelman something where step 1 of any possible line of argument is false. But I've found it a very effective approach when having a conversation about the best solution to a problem, for instance. I also like the double crux technique: collaborate to find the crux for each party, the most important point upon which the argument rests, such that if it turned out to not hold you would change your mind. Turns an argument into a collaborative exploration.

wussboy 4y ago
It may be useful in that if even step one is a no go, at least you’ll find out early that discussion is useless and you can spend your time in others ways I used to argue religion on Facebook a lot (I know, I know). But I stopped accepting invitations to debate when I started asked my opponents to agree before hand that they would agree to change their minds if I was right (as I agreed to change if I was wrong). When I realized they weren’t interested in learning anything, the point of debate went away.
- akavel 4y ago
  Who was to be the arbiter in the debate, i.e. the person deciding which one of you were right?
dataflow 4y ago
> I also like the double crux technique: collaborate to find the crux for each party, the most important point upon which the argument rests, such that if it turned out to not hold you would change your mind. Turns an argument into a collaborative exploration. In theory it's nice. In practice this doesn't get you anywhere nearly as often as you'd hope. Because IRL disagreements are almost often over the magnitude of a problem, not over their existence. Trivial example for the sake of illustration: Teammate 1: {writes some code} Teammate 2: "That's hard to read, can you do it {this} way? It's much easier to understand the code that way if we find a bug." Teammate 1: "That's too brittle though, can we do it {that} way? That way it's much less likely for the code to break in the first place." Both sides can understand each others' positions perfectly fine. They just think their own concerns/priorities are a bigger deal than those of the other person. Same goes with many political and other issues; this was just a silly example to illustrate.

thrown_22 4y ago

It's even worse online where just silencing your opponent is considered a victory. HN was particularly bad about this with post flagging a few months ago. It was weaponized to hide posts which _someone_ disagreed with, even if the post was later restored the hour to twelve it was offline was enough to astroturf debates. I'm seeing less of this since GP started getting his own posts flagged. Shame Dang didn't do his job till his boss told him to.

adastra22 4y ago

With very few exceptions, nobody is evil in their own head-canon. If you think the other party is evil, deluded, or both, then in my experience that is a definite indication that you do not understand the opposing viewpoint very well, and could benefit from steel-manning.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bick_nyers 4y ago

In arguments in which the opponent is more concerned with winning as opposed to discovering the correct answer, I don't believe any strategy is particularly effective. That being said, what steelmanning can offer, is to change the nature of the argument. If done correctly, you can sometimes de-escalate your opponent enough in order to tap into their humanity, and make the argument not about winning. Steelmanning is just a logical way of empathizing with your opponent.