GeniesLoki

Suppose there is a set of ideas circulating that has a grain of truth but is being interpreted and applied by many in a bad way. Should you steelman the ideas, to acknowledge and draw out value in them? Or fight the ideas, to counter the bad influence they are having on others?

For context, I'm not asking about what you do in the privacy of your own thinking, but what you should do in public discourse: what you choose to write or speak about.

Often what I do is I pick out individual ideas from the set and steelman those while disclaiming them. e.g. "XYZ theory has a bunch of issues, but when their idea of frobnicating can actually be a quite useful tool, so I'll describe it and how it can be helpful..."

How do you choose to say that, rather than: “XYZ theory has a grain of truth, but the way it's being used today is quite destructive, so I'll explain the popular interpretation and why it's going wrong…”?

I would rarely bother doing that unless it's directly necessary for something I want to do TBH. There's a lot more wrong stuff than right stuff out there and if I actively fought it I'd never get anything done (I still will argue locally when it comes up in conversation).

I'd much rather offer people good things that, by adopting, they improve their understanding and may then feel more able to let go of bad things should they choose to do so.