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Comment by wamatt | Hacker News Reader

This comment brings to mind the concept of the the steel man [1][2].

Steelmanning an argument means to go one step further. In addition to selecting the most charitable parts of another person's argument, one seeks to improve on it, by making it the best possible representation of the other persons position.

From there, one can offer their own counterpoint, to this improved version.

[1] https://themerelyreal.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/steelmanning/

[2] http://lesswrong.com/lw/85h/better_disagreement/

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Theatre Sports (competitive collaborative dramatic improvisation) has the concepts of offer, accept, and block.

Accepting an offer means to build on it in some way, as a real part of the scene - in the way you mean.

A block is when you ignore or undermine the offer, denying it instead of building on it. There's temptation to do so for a cheap laugh. The uncharitable negativity of HN seems similar.

One thing that took me a while to understand as a player - accepting doesn't always mean ignoring conflict. If you offer me something, I accept that your version of reality is true; I don't have to agree with specific parts of it.

For example, if someone starts a scene with "Isn't it lovely to be here in Paris?", I accept that we are in Paris, but I don't have to think it's lovely.

The takeaway from this to non-improv discussions is that I'm more aware of the fact that although I might disagree with the comment someone makes, I accept that the writer has that opinion and that they believe it to be true, and if I want to challenge any part of it then I'm going to have a much better time of it if I start from their version of reality.

Accepting means logging|auditing?

I hope the order in which these comments lead to yours will stay this way in the future. for reference: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xh6gdqlm8jargi4/Screenshot%202015-...

Why? They perfectly highlight what's the "good common-sense reply" is like, how we should measure with each other opinions and how to handle disagreements.

HN might as well included the conversation as an example.

Sounds not dissimilar to the "bid/turn towards/turn away" terminology in Gottman relationship theory.

Log is an act we miss. (Change is act limited by log law.)

The steelmanning combinatorially #buildingmentalhealth and emotional regulation while mods are drone operators hiddren unrestricted violently cutting and copping audit logs to get page views clear for what depth of order of self empowerment determination?

[1] http://web.archive.org/*/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?i... [2] https://archive.today/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9... [3] http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1428133249694151

I'll note that straw-man seems very common in language flame wars. Steelmanning in that specific context would tend to make one examine the particular context in which the language is most used and why. Come to think of it, many language discussions would vanish in a puffs of pointlessness if it weren't for the many levels of subtlety with which one can disguise straw-man.

At the risk of further derailing the thread, I wonder if there might be a more inclusive term than 'steel man' — I don't feel great about using that phrase to describe 'the best possible representation of a position.' (The issue is fresh in my mind, since I stumbled across the gender-neutral alternative 'straw person'[1] this morning.)

[1] http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2013/18.html, para 21.

I was attacked for being "PC" the last time I used straw person here on HN. I just thought it sounded better, but the poster was adamant that I was responsible for all the ills in society.

Hopefully, this new guideline will avert similar incidents.

Considering how toxic PC people are to debates (ironically exactly because the gratuitus negativity they bring) that is more than a defence mechanism that any healthy community needs to develop to protect itself.

Political correctness should be considered the same as writing a negative comment.

You might get fewer downvotes if you define "PC" and offer some examples so we understand your perspective. Most people who rail against "being PC" are walking pits of gratuitous negativity, so people are probably assuming you're one of them.

PC: Political correctness.

Best example of my head: the developer on Node.js who got haunted to hell because he reversed a change from he to some gender-neutral term. For the feeling of some undefined person Node.js, and I suspect open source in general, lost a good developer.

Other example: after landing a satelite on a rock tens of thousands of miles away the lead of the rocket team is forced to make a tearful apology because is found to wear a shirt with semi-dress women and guns on it. Said shirt being made by his friend, who is a woman.

Other example: dongle gate, github metocracy.

So yeah, a few of these people may, sometimes, have a point, but the community will be much better of if we kick them out on sight.

This seems a bit different from my example: being attacked for using a less common term. In this case, the "PC police" (going by your examples) were the people attacking me because I used a term that offended them.

They attacked you because they assume, incorrectly, that you were one of the PC people, because you used a PC term, not just a less common term. This isn't unreasonable and the cost of letting PC people in is high.

It's not a "PC word." I like the way the word sounds more, so I use it. Word choice is my prerogative as a writer.

It is a PC word. Your choice of word is as you said, your prerogative. How people read it is theirs.

What benefit would that bring? Sure we will be more inclusive to the people who don't understand that steelmanning comes from the (opposite) strawmanning, which comes from strawmen, which have been called so for centuries.

Is a person who gets offended by that really the kind of person you want on HN?

I tried to express my comment in a way that made it clear I wasn't attacking the parent. I realise that 'straw man' is centuries old, like many of the terms that are now coming to be supplanted by inclusive alternatives. Of course using such terms doesn't make you a bad person, but I think we can all benefit from considering the connotations of the words we use. Even if you think the harm caused by non-inclusive language is negligible, in many cases it costs you nothing to use an alternative, so why not do it?

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