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Khoth comments on Dangers of steelmanning / principle of charity - Less Wrong
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There's another way it can go wrong:
"You claim X, which sounds pretty bizarre to me so I'll charitably assume you meant a weaker version X' that fits in my worldview, and I'll forget that you originally claimed an argument for X."
That's pretty much the same thing as my point #1.
Wouldn't that be strawmanning though, not steelmanning?
I think it's not quite the same. Strawmanning is inventing a less defensible, normally more extreme, version of an argument. This is inventing a more defensible, less extreme version of an argument.
Being more defensible and being more extreme are not the same thing, in fact frequently it is the more extreme versions of arguments that are easier to defend.
No, this isn't creating a less extreme argument, it's creating a less extreme thesis.