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You've literally described a slippery slope fallacy
by joshschreuder 8y ago
You've literally described a slippery slope fallacy
- jlawson 8y ago"Slippery slope" is not a fallacy. Life is full of slippery slopes in terms of behavior.
- dymk 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope#Non-fallacious_usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope#Non-fallacious_... No, that still falls into fallacious usage. The user doesn't justify why the steps of their assertion follow after the other. Just that they... do.
- steve_taylor 8y agoNo one needs to justify the "why" when we're talking about a very well trodden slippery slope.
- dymk 8y agoFallacies don't just stop applying when it's convenient to elide justification.
- Sir_Substance 8y agoThat's true. However, we also don't collect history for the fun of it. Over the course of the last 20 years, we've seen that once a data collection and digital surveillance framework is put in place, the surveillance tends to expand. Slippery slope arguments, sans good reasoning, tend to be fallacies. However, don't fall into the trap of thinking that an argument backed by historical record is a slippery slope just because it's predicting an outcome. We might call that the "history is all slippery slopes" fallacy. Stating "this has happened before multiple times before, and each time has lead to x" is a very different argument to stating "this has happened, so the logical extrapolation is x".
- justatdotin 8y agoif it can be that well trodden, is it really still a slippery slope?
- mixmastamyk 8y agoOverwhelming empirical data across history.
- johncolanduoni 8y agoThat’s proof of existence of slippery slopes, not of prevelance of hypothetical slippery slopes being realized.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoWe’re talking about data collection and usage, not possibilities in the universe.
- johncolanduoni 8y agoExactly, which is why I'd be more interested in concrete commonalities of slippery slopes that were actually realized, and not just a general "history has plenty of slippery slopes".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y agoThe fallacy is to assume, without evidence, that the slope is slippery. There are plenty of slopes that aren't. Probably most, just you don't think about those because you know they aren't slippery already. For example, I slept in 'til 8:30 today. OMG, a slippery slope. Next thing you know, I'll be sleeping until 3PM. Til midnight! I will never wake up again. But as it happens, sleeping in isn't a slippery slope. I don't think there's any solid evidence that telemetry is either.
- sitkack 8y agoThis is exactly why I get up a minute earlier each day. As it is, I am waking up tomorrow at 4:39 AM. Mission accomplished.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago(10 years into one possible future) “... and that was me before we had children.”
- iopq 8y agoUmm, it's slippery for me. I haven't had a stable sleeping schedule for over ten years. Send help.
- colordrops 8y agoThat's the "hasty counterexample" fallacy.
- colordrops 8y agoIt's not a fallacy. When a printer driver reporting stats back to the manufacturer made national news in the early 2000s and prompted calls for laws regulating privacy, the argument was that it was a slippery slope fallacy to assert that privacy violations would get worse. Look at where we are now.
- enraged_camel 8y ago>>It's not a fallacy. By itself no, but it is often used fallaciously. Such as in this case, when someone is opposing some good thing on the basis that that good thing might, some day, lead to bad things.
- steve_taylor 8y agoGood things such as trackers ostensibly designed to deliver you relevant content?
- enraged_camel 8y agoNo, good things such as telemetry and automated error reporting so that bugs can be fixed effectively and efficiently and everyone is better off for it.
- wolco 8y agoThat sounds nice. But could they use this data legally in another way?
- jjeaff 8y agoNot realizing that many things actually ARE a slippery slope is what has gotten the world into a lot of messes. Nearly every legitimate privacy concern that we have today started out with a legitimate and we'll meaning purpose. Our entire legal system is predicated on common law precedent. So it is very valid in many cases to argue that allowing something good now, might set us up for something very bad later.
- 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]