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A good read, thanks for the link. I think I'd disagree with his take on steelmanning though. He seems to think that in steelmanning, you need to assume the sam
by verdagon 4y ago
A good read, thanks for the link.
I think I'd disagree with his take on steelmanning though. He seems to think that in steelmanning, you need to assume the same assumptions as your opponent, thus precluding alternate possibilities.
But, in steelmanning, you need to ask the opposing side if your understanding of their point is correct, and also list out all the assumptions made along the way to get to that claim.
Once the assumptions are spoken out loud, it's easy to identify and focus on the first branch of disagreement. It saves a lot of time. That's the true power of steelmanning a hostile opponent.
- icedchocolate 4y agoI couldn’t agree more, well said
- R0b0t1 4y agoI agree with your assessment, but if your opponent is truly hostile it's not going to work. One person steelmanning and the other person strawmanning has a tendency to suffer from the same problem as always: to a superficially interested or poorly educated audience, defending against strawmen looks weak.
- galangalalgol 4y agoIf you discover you operate from different axioms, or that even your ideas of how to evaluate the value of an axiom differ, what is the next step?
- themeiguoren 4y agoDraw parallels to other domains where those axioms come into conflict, to try and get some references on how to weigh them. Eventually you just live with the fact that some people have different moral axioms and weightings. It’s a big part of what it means to know someone well, and does not at all preclude having a strong relationship with someone.