Adult tool

Steel-Man Workshop

The opposite of a straw man: state their case as strongly as you honestly can.

Definition

Steel-manning means restating someone else's position in its strongest fair form before you criticize it — the opposite of a straw man.

Steel-manning improves your own argument, builds trust, and sometimes changes your mind. If the other person would not recognize your paraphrase, you are not ready to rebut.

From the book

Chapter 1 & 12 in Think Straight, Argue Better — practice here, then return to the chapter examples.

Practice

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