= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
MugaSofer comments on Dangers of steelmanning / principle of charity - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (91)
Excellent points. I've never been a huge fan of steelmanning. A couple more:
People talk as if steelmanning is inherently a virtue, but in practice they're selective about what they steelman. You won't see many steelmannings of Young Earth Creationism around these parts--or even plain vanilla theism. If people are going to steelman, it would be nice for them to be more up-front about why they chose to steelman this particular argument (or when they're telling someone else "hey why aren't you steelmanning the person you're attacking," be upfront about what that particular argument deserves steelmanning.
If you choose which arguments to steelman more or less at random, or for bad reasons, it seems like it's a violation of privileging the hypothesis.
Yes, that would be tribal affiliations showing. I always assumed the cure for this was more steelmanning...
Which part? Is lack of interest in steel manning YEC just a sign of tribal affiliations?
Both points - the lack of consistency, and privileging the hypothesis.
(In fairness, it's more than "tribal affliliations". There are probably all sorts of biases creating this particular danger in being half a rationalist.)