Steelmanning The Case For Consultants, Affirmative Action, and Alcohol
True intellectual rigor demands we seek out the strongest possible counterarguments, even when they challenge beliefs that feel obviously correct. Laying out the strongest arguments for the opposing side ensures that we understand the other side from first-principles. If you can't articulate the strongest possible case against your own beliefs, you don't understand the topic well enough to have strong beliefs about it, and are subject to the public intellectuals and other cult-like individuals who present these ideas. In this piece, I steelman the case for consultants, affirmative action, and alcohol consumption. Note that this is not what I necessarily believe, but what I believe are the strongest arguments in favor of each. Zeitgeist belief: Consultants don’t do real work. Consultants may work nominally long hours but do not add any significant value to firms, billing high rates for meaningless PowerPoints. Steelmanned counterarguments: Consultants enable executives to take unpopular
Explore this link on the map →