Even the Man of Steel has Limits

I was recently asked to name a candidate for the best rule to follow in argumentation, and ended up with the principle of generous interpretations. However, no rule is perfect.

The principle of generous interpretations says that we should always strive to attack the strongest possible version of an idea, even if we end up making changes to it in the process. This is often also referred to as steelmanning.

Everyone agrees that steelmanning is a good habit, yet almost no one ever does it. To some, this is evidence of how bad our…