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The Steel Man Technique: How to Argue Better and Be More Persuasive
The steel man is the opposite of the straw man. It's being charitable, and building up the best possible form of the argument for the other side.
The incentive to come out ahead in a zero-sum game causes a lot of us to commit logical fallacies, whether intentional or not. It’s being charitable and patching up the weaknesses in the other side’s proposition so that he can bring the best counter-argument to your point of view. Second, and more importantly, you need to constantly test our assumptions and beliefs in order to build a better mental model of the world.
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