AI Tutor
Imagine knocking over a dummy made of straw and claiming you won a championship boxing match.
In academic debate, defeating a weak version of a claim is called a straw man fallacy, but top scholars do the exact opposite: they build a steel man by reconstructing an opponent's argument in its strongest, most persuasive form before responding.
How do you systematically upgrade someone else's argument without accidentally agreeing with it?

The Rapoport-Dennett Protocol

In 2013, philosopher Daniel Dennett synthesized rules first formulated by mathematical psychologist Anatol Rapoport to create a step-by-step checklist for intellectual discourse.
The protocol requires you to re-articulate the rival position so clearly that your opponent says, 'Thanks, I wish I'd thought of putting it that way.'
Let's see how this protocol works in a real seminar debate over a controversial policy.

Worked Example: Universal Basic Income

Suppose a classmate gives a messy argument: 'Universal Basic Income is bad because giving everyone free money makes people lazy couch potatoes.'
Instead of mocking the phrase 'lazy couch potatoes,' you steelman the claim into a sound macroeconomic concern: unconditioned cash transfers may reduce aggregate labor hours in low-margin sectors and induce cost-push inflation.