About the Show
This is a show for people who'd rather understand an argument than win it.
We take one idea at a time and give it an honest hearing. Every side gets a fair one. No gotchas, no dunking, nobody leaves in a puddle. That's the whole promise. Everything below is how I try to keep it, and who to blame when I don't.
The one habit the whole show runs on
There's a word for trying to understand the strongest version of an idea before you lay a finger on it.
- steel·man /ˈstēlˌman/
- noun. The strongest, most honest version of an argument, often stronger than the people who hold it manage to make it. The opposite of a straw man.
- verb. To build that version first, on purpose, before you say a word against it.
- A straw man is the version you can win against. A steelman is the version worth beating.
That's the whole job here. When I'm thinking something through alone, I try to steelman every side, especially the ones I don't like. And with a guest, the best thing that can happen is quiet and easy to miss: they hear their own argument come back stronger than they made it, and say, “Yes, that's exactly what I mean.” Then, just as fairly, I start making the case against it.
The thing we've forgotten how to do
That is a harder trick than it sounds, holding two things in your head at once. Most of us have lost the knack for it.
- You can respect someone and disagree with them.
- You can admire someone's work without wanting to live like they do.
- You can take an idea seriously without accepting it.
- You can criticize a system while recognizing you're part of it, too.
- You can want the world to be kinder while admitting there aren't always clean answers.
The internet often treats that kind of thinking as weakness. Fence-sitter, cop-out, both-sides-ing. I don't see it that way. I think it's what paying attention actually looks like.
Changing your mind isn't failure, and neither is discovering the other side has a point. If anything, it's evidence the conversation was worth having. That's what Subverting Expectations is about: not proving people wrong, but learning enough to surprise ourselves.
Full disclosure
Hi, I'm Erik. I've spent about thirty years building software and selling it, which is a long time to be wrong in front of other people and slowly learn to find that interesting instead of humiliating.
The selling part matters here. I've also spent years in marketing, so I know how persuasion works from the inside. Which means you should trust me a little less, not more. This is a room to think in, not to be sold in, and I'm the last person who gets a pass on that.
I'm not an academic, and I'm not selling a system. I'm just harder on my own takes than I'll ever be on yours, and curious enough to keep pulling the thread. Mostly, I'm the person who's accountable when this show breaks one of the promises above. If it ever does, tell me. I'll take it seriously.
If you want to check my work: I'm on LinkedIn, where the thirty-years-of-software claim is a matter of public record.
I don't know how most of these conversations are going to end. That's the part I like. If that sounds like your kind of room, pull up a chair.