Steel Manning
Make better decisions by comparing the strongest arguments from capable advocates on opposing sides. This prevents a weak or caricatured opponent from creating false confidence.
The argument most likely to improve your decision may come from the smartest advocate of the position you expect to reject.
E1Replace the straw man with two champions
Judging a position by its weakest representative tests the representative, not the position. Steel manning changes the comparison set: find a smart advocate presenting the best case for one side, then do the same for the other. Your decision must then survive both sides’ strongest reasoning, making it harder for post-hoc rationalization or expertise selection bias to turn a prior preference into an easy victory.
E1Strong advocacy is not proof
This method improves the quality of the contest; it does not guarantee the correct verdict. Two articulate advocates may still rely on bad evidence, omit another position, or disagree about values that argument alone cannot settle.
Build a two-advocate decision brief
For one decision tomorrow, identify the strongest advocate you can find for each of the two leading positions. Write each side’s best argument in a form its advocate would accept, then decide only after you can state what evidence or trade-off separates them.
Episodes that teach this
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Feelings vs Facts? Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions - FutureIQ
· explained at 13:25
7,519 views
The advice is to follow a smart person giving the best arguments for one side and another smart person giving the best arguments for the other.