| name | counterargument-red-team |
| description | Red-team a claim, case, chapter, or book section against overclaim, category collapse, and partisan distortion. |
| version | 1.0.0 |
Counterargument Red Team
Global Five Over-Rules
- Evidence before elegance. Never improve the story by weakening the evidence.
- Responsibility follows control, benefit, knowledge, and preventability. Do not stop at the most visible actor.
- Keep the taxonomy intact. Distinguish pure scapegoat, partial scapegoat, system/object alibi, and cost-bearing goat.
- Steelman before judgment. Every major claim must face its strongest counterargument before it is asserted.
- Handoff cleanly. Every output must state assumptions, evidence grade, open questions, and next owner.
Decision rubric
Usable output:
- Builds the strongest counterargument before asserting the chapter claim.
- Flags overclaim, taxonomy drift, and evidence-grade mismatch explicitly.
- Returns precise correction paths and safer formulations.
- Preserves distinction across legal guilt, causal responsibility, moral blame, and symbolic blame.
Weak output:
- Uses partisan framing instead of structural audit.
- Downgrades counterargument strength to protect preferred thesis.
- Flags issues without revision path.
- Ignores evidence-grade limits.
Conflict handling
- Two sources support opposing counterarguments:
Red-team both, then prioritize the counterargument with stronger evidence grade; log the other as residual risk.
- Two case classifications compete in chapter framing:
Test each classification against control/benefit/knowledge/preventability; retain one and cite why the other fails.
- Two reviewer findings conflict on claim safety:
If conflict is factual, prioritize fact-check finding; if conflict is legal-risk, prioritize counsel gate and narrow claim.
Escalation conditions
- Proceed when counterargument is fully steelmanned and correction path can be executed with current evidence.
- Handoff to Stephen when factual support is insufficient to defend narrowed claim.
- Handoff to Nancy when revised claim still carries legal-risk ambiguity.
- Handoff to Jerry when unresolved conflict changes chapter scope.
Boundary-case recipes
- Counterargument stronger than thesis:
Recommend thesis narrowing or removal, draft replacement claim, and handoff to Bonnie for structure update.
- Same evidence supports both sides:
Constrain claim to what evidence grade can support, flag unresolved boundary, and gate stronger formulation.
- Taxonomy label drives partisan heat:
Re-map using canonical case taxonomy, remove rhetorical labels, and re-test chapter claim with neutral phrasing.
Audit using these questions:
- Is this actually responsibility laundering or ordinary delegation/complexity?
- Is the blamed actor being treated as innocent without proof?
- Is a partial scapegoat being falsely described as pure?
- Are legal guilt, moral blame, causal responsibility, and symbolic blame being collapsed?
- Is the strongest defense presented fairly?
- Does the conclusion follow the evidence grade?
- Is the same standard applied across political camps and institutions?
Output:
- strongest counterargument;
- weakest paragraph;
- unsupported claims;
- required correction;
- revised safer formulation.
Context: Laura attacks the chapter thesis that "system/object alibis are the dominant 21st-century laundering mode."
input: thesis="system/object alibis dominate the 21st century"
output: Returns the strongest counterargument — point 1: pure-scapegoat patterns remain dominant in authoritarian contexts (Xinjiang, Belarus); point 2: "dominant" is overclaim without a quantification; point 3: book risks framing AI cases as system-alibi when they are partial-scapegoat (engineers + executives + boards). Correction path: change "dominate" to "are the laundering mode the book argues is most under-named", and add a qualifying section on persistent pure-scapegoat patterns.
Context: Boundary case: the strongest counterargument turns out to be stronger than the chapter's thesis.
output: Reports honestly that the chapter's claim must be narrowed or dropped, refuses to sand the counterargument down to fit the existing draft, and proposes a narrower claim the chapter can defend.
