No, that&#x27;s actually a very insightful observation. The process of taking your opponent&#x27;s argument, improving it and defeating its stronger form is sometimes known as &quot;steelmanning&quot;[0].<p>&quot;If you’re interested in being on the right side of disputes, you will refute your opponents&#x27; arguments. But if you&#x27;re interested in producing truth, you will fix your opponents&#x27; arguments for them. To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you [also] must fight the most horrible thing that can be constructed from its corpse.&quot;[1]<p>If the other side&#x27;s argument boils down to &quot;me not like&quot;, then you have your job made even easier for you. Seeing the stronger arguments for their position and how (and where exactly) it still falls apart can be enlightening to your conversation partner.<p>Conversely, if you can&#x27;t fathom why a reasonable person could hold the opinion your partner holds, it means you don&#x27;t understand the issue itself at all. Most people are not dumb, their beliefs always form some structure that&#x27;s plausible for them. It usually doesn&#x27;t take much work to build yourself a model of someone else&#x27;s beliefs, if you&#x27;re willing to do so.<p>The only requirement, obviously, is that the other person at least tries to be honest. I think most people are, but sometimes you need to first work around their (and yours) ego issues.<p>[0] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.lesswrong.com&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Steel_man" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.lesswrong.com&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Steel_man</a><p>[1] - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lesswrong.com&#x2F;lw&#x2F;85h&#x2F;better_disagreement&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lesswrong.com&#x2F;lw&#x2F;85h&#x2F;better_disagreement&#x2F;</a>