Thanks, I think this is an excellent response and I agree both are important goals.
I’m curious to learn more about why you think that steelmanning is good for improving one’s beliefs/impact. It seems to me that that would be true if you believe yourself to be much more likely to be correct than the author of a post. Otherwise, it seems that trying to understand their original argument is better than trying to steelman it.
I could see that perhaps you should try to do both (ie, both the author’s literal intent and whether they are directionally correct)?
[EDIT: I’m particularly curious because I think that my current understanding seems to imply that steelmanning like this would be hubristic, and I think that probably that’s not what you’re going for. So almost certainly I’m missing some piece of what you’re saying!]
Thanks, I think this is an excellent response and I agree both are important goals.
I’m curious to learn more about why you think that steelmanning is good for improving one’s beliefs/impact. It seems to me that that would be true if you believe yourself to be much more likely to be correct than the author of a post. Otherwise, it seems that trying to understand their original argument is better than trying to steelman it.
I could see that perhaps you should try to do both (ie, both the author’s literal intent and whether they are directionally correct)?
[EDIT: I’m particularly curious because I think that my current understanding seems to imply that steelmanning like this would be hubristic, and I think that probably that’s not what you’re going for. So almost certainly I’m missing some piece of what you’re saying!]