# Most arguments fail in the causal chain, not at the premises <div class="pills-container"><span class="pill">Last Updated: April 2026</span></div> Weak arguments rarely fail because their starting premises are false. They fail in the middle, where a plausible-sounding step smuggles in an unexamined assumption. Writing the causal chain out explicitly — A causes B because of X; B causes C because of Y — forces that assumption into view. This is where [[Identifying the real crux requires going below the stated disagreement|crux identification]] becomes useful: once the broken step is visible, you can ask whether fixing it would actually change anyone's position, or whether the real disagreement is somewhere else entirely. The check is also related to [[An unfalsifiable belief is rationalization, not reasoning|unfalsifiability]]: a step that can't be wrong is usually an assumption, not a causal claim.