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Slippery slope is considered a fallacy because not all things vaguely similar to previous paths to X result in X, obviously. Nobody looks at a well-run public

Slippery slope is considered a fallacy because not all things vaguely similar to previous paths to X result in X, obviously. Nobody looks at a well-run public rail schedule and thinks 'uh-oh, Fascism is just around the corner' [1]. You're conflating your personal strongly held beliefs about it with imagined inevitable consequences. We don't agree that they're inevitable at all. [1] Popular myth nature of this quip aside.

hntrader 6y ago
No, it's not true that slippery slopes are automatically fallacious, that's a misunderstanding of the fallacy. The fallacy pertains to people who argue that a causal chain will necessarily play out, or that a particularly implausible chain will play out with high probability. The fallacy does not assert that slippery slopes don't exist, and the mere act of arguing that a plausible slippery slope has a nontrivial chance of occurring is certainly not the Slippery Slope Fallacy as it's formally defined. Saying that slippery slopes are inherently fallacious may be aptly labelled the "Slippery Slope Fallacy Fallacy".
- carmen_sandiego 6y ago
  > The fallacy pertains to people who argue that a causal chain will necessarily play out, or that a particularly implausible chain will play out with high probability. Isn't this exactly what I described in that comment? I'm confused. Or maybe I was just not clear in my writing. Re-emphasized: > not all things vaguely similar to previous paths to X result in X, obviously [=> even though some things do] Also, I didn't really introduce slippery slope as a strict logical fallacy. I said they were making a poor argument and identified it as being of slippery slope form. They responded to that talking about logical fallacies so we went on that tangent, but really I just found their specific instance not credibly inevitable.
  - hntrader 6y ago
    I was just responding to the statement "Slippery slope is considered a fallacy", by saying that slippery slope arguments aren't necessarily fallacious, but it seems you largely agree with that already. I wasn't so much endorsing or commenting on the logic in the original comment.
Tossitto 6y ago
My postulate: while the slippery slope won't necessarily find itself at the prescribed (induced) endpoint, there is a virtually unlimited timeline for the slippery slope to find itself to that endpoint. With that virtually unlimited running space, if continued attempts are made, eventually probability will necessarily yield a result. I think this applies more to wider generalizations as opposed to very specific instances due to the nature of probability and finity of resources invested in continued attempts, but it can be applied in either scenario. Think Murphy's Law.

hntrader 6y ago

No, it's not true that slippery slopes are automatically fallacious, that's a misunderstanding of the fallacy. The fallacy pertains to people who argue that a causal chain will necessarily play out, or that a particularly implausible chain will play out with high probability. The fallacy does not assert that slippery slopes don't exist, and the mere act of arguing that a plausible slippery slope has a nontrivial chance of occurring is certainly not the Slippery Slope Fallacy as it's formally defined. Saying that slippery slopes are inherently fallacious may be aptly labelled the "Slippery Slope Fallacy Fallacy".

carmen_sandiego 6y ago
> The fallacy pertains to people who argue that a causal chain will necessarily play out, or that a particularly implausible chain will play out with high probability. Isn't this exactly what I described in that comment? I'm confused. Or maybe I was just not clear in my writing. Re-emphasized: > not all things vaguely similar to previous paths to X result in X, obviously [=> even though some things do] Also, I didn't really introduce slippery slope as a strict logical fallacy. I said they were making a poor argument and identified it as being of slippery slope form. They responded to that talking about logical fallacies so we went on that tangent, but really I just found their specific instance not credibly inevitable.
- hntrader 6y ago
  I was just responding to the statement "Slippery slope is considered a fallacy", by saying that slippery slope arguments aren't necessarily fallacious, but it seems you largely agree with that already. I wasn't so much endorsing or commenting on the logic in the original comment.

Tossitto 6y ago

My postulate: while the slippery slope won't necessarily find itself at the prescribed (induced) endpoint, there is a virtually unlimited timeline for the slippery slope to find itself to that endpoint. With that virtually unlimited running space, if continued attempts are made, eventually probability will necessarily yield a result. I think this applies more to wider generalizations as opposed to very specific instances due to the nature of probability and finity of resources invested in continued attempts, but it can be applied in either scenario. Think Murphy's Law.