Build It Before You Break It.

A strawman is the weakest version of your opponent’s view — easy to knock down, and worthless to knock down, because nobody actually held it. A steelman is the strongest version — the one its smartest defender would recognise and endorse. The discipline is simple to state and hard to do: you have not earned the right to attack a position until you can argue it better than the person who holds it.

Why bother, when your goal is to win? Three reasons.

It makes you right less often — which is good. Building the strongest opposing case is the fastest way to discover your own is wrong. Better to find out in private than in the tribunal.

It makes your win count. An audience that watches you defeat the real argument believes you. An audience that watches you defeat a scarecrow knows you dodged.

It’s the only honest move. Arguing in frame means engaging what your opponent actually claims, not a convenient cartoon of it.

Rapoport’s rules give you the steps. Before you rebut: (1) re-state the opposing view so well its holder says “yes, that’s it”; (2) list the agreements — what’s genuinely right in it; (3) name what you learned from it. Then, and only then, attack — the strongest version, with its best evidence already on the table.

Watch for the AI trap: ask a chatbot to “argue against X” and it will often hand you the strawman, because clichéd weak versions are what it has seen most. Demand the champion, not the scarecrow.