Don’t use a straw man argument, use a steel man argument.

by
An excellent thread from @farnamstreet on producing better arguments. Priceless advice for any campaigner or lobbyist.
Too often we use straw arguments, thinking they will win. They don’t. They a swept away, and you don’t win. Instead, use this technique, and create a steelman, and your chances of winning will increase.
Strange it appeared as I was suggesting something similar to someone yesterday to address a recent Commission proposal.

FS
@farnamstreet
We often use these bad arguments without realizing it or experience them without recognizing them, but these types of debates are unproductive and unlikely to help anyone learn. If we want our arguments to create buy-in and not animosity, we need to avoid making bad ones.

It’s never fun to admit we’re wrong about anything or to have to change our minds. But it is essential if we want to get smarter and see the world as it is, not as we want it to be.

Any time we engage in debate, we need to be honest about our intentions. What are we trying to achieve? Are we open to changing our minds? Are we listening to our opponent?
Whatever the purpose, bad arguments are harmful to everyone involved in a debate. They don’t get us anywhere because we’re not tackling an opponent’s actual viewpoint. This means we have no hope of convincing them. So how do we prevent bad arguments?

FS
@farnamstreet
The most powerful way to avoid using bad arguments and to discourage their use by others is to follow the principle of charity and argue against the strongest and most persuasive version of their grounds.

“In Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking,” the philosopher Daniel Dennett offers some general guidelines for using the principle of charity, formulated by social psychologist and game theorist Anatol Rapoport:

FS
@farnamstreet
You should… 1. Attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.” 2. List any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

FS
@farnamstreet
3. Mention anything you have learned from your target. 4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

FS
@farnamstreet
An argument that is the strongest version of an opponent’s viewpoint is known as a steelman. It’s purposefully constructed to be as difficult as possible to attack. The idea is that we can only say we’ve won a debate when we’ve fought with a steelman, not a straw one.

FS
@farnamstreet
An exercise in steel manning is the ideological Turing test. This proposes that we cannot say we understand an opponent’s position unless we would be able to argue in favor of it so well that an observer would not be able to tell which opinion we actually hold.

FS
@farnamstreet
Although we don’t have the option to do this for every single thing we disagree with, when a debate is extremely important to us, the ideological Turing test can be a helpful tool for ensuring we’re fully prepared.