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PromptsΒ·4 min readΒ·

The Steelman Machine: Make Claude Argue the Other Side Better Than the Other Side Can

A prompt that builds the strongest honest case for a position you disagree with, then uses it to find the weak joint in your own.

You keep winning arguments you never actually had.

The version of the other side living in your head is not the other side. It's a sparring dummy you built yourself, and you've been beating it for years.

That feels like conviction. It's closer to a blind spot with good PR. You can't tell the difference between a belief you've tested and a belief nobody has ever pushed on, because from the inside they produce exactly the same feeling of being right.

Steelmanning is the fix and it's genuinely hard to do alone, because you can't argue with full force for something you find wrong. This is one of the few things AI is unfairly good at. Not to hand you an opinion, it's the opposite. You come out knowing what you believe and, for the first time, why.

I run this before I publish anything with an opinion in it. About one time in 5 I change my mind, and the other 4 times the piece gets significantly better.

What's Inside

  • The strongest 5 arguments for a position you reject, built without hedging.
  • The underlying value or assumption that the whole disagreement actually rests on.
  • A direct attack on your own view, plus the one piece of evidence that would move you.

The Prompt

Paste this into Claude, fill in the two brackets with a position you genuinely disagree with and your honest current view, and let it build the strongest version of the other side.

Steelman Machine prompt
Build the strongest possible case for a position I disagree with.

POSITION: [state it in one sentence, the way its best supporters would state it,
not the way its critics do]
MY CURRENT VIEW: [yours, honestly, including the part you're least sure of]

Rules:
- Steelman, never strawman. Argue it the way its smartest defender would, not
  the way its worst representative does online.
- No hedging in section 1. No "of course there are downsides". That section is
  the case for, at full strength.
- Use real evidence, named studies, historical cases or concrete numbers where
  they exist. Where a claim rests on a value judgement rather than evidence,
  say so plainly instead of dressing it up as fact.
- If you are not confident a source exists, say so. Do not invent citations.

Give me:

1. THE CASE
The strongest version, in 5 arguments or fewer, ordered strongest first, each
with its best supporting evidence.

2. THE FOUNDATION
What would a person have to believe about the world, or value more highly than
something else, for this position to follow logically? That is the real
disagreement. Name it in one paragraph.

3. MY WEAK POINTS
Take my current view and attack it using this case. Be specific about which of
my beliefs is doing work it can't support.

4. THE HONEST SCORE
Where is this position genuinely stronger than mine, where is it genuinely
weaker, and which parts of the disagreement are empirical (settleable with
data) versus values-based (not settleable at all)?

5. THE TEST
One question I could ask myself, or one piece of evidence I could go and find,
that would actually move me.

Do not tell me what to conclude. Stop at 5.

This is the prompt that makes you test your own beliefs instead of rehearsing them, and leaves you knowing what you believe and why.

How To Use It

  1. 1Write the position the way its supporters would say it out loud. If your one-liner already sounds silly, you've strawmanned it before Claude got a look in.
  2. 2Read section 2 twice. The arguments are interesting, but the foundation is where the real disagreement lives, and it's usually a values gap dressed up as a facts gap.
  3. 3Do something with section 5. Go and look for the evidence, or admit that nothing would move you and be honest with yourself about what that means.
  4. 4Make it yours: Add "argue it as [a named thinker who holds this view]" and you get a sharper, more specific case than a generic defence.

Give it a go and let me know if you find it useful!

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