6 ms·

I loathe the term "slippery slope", but I think this is one case that we really need to pay attention to for fear of one. There's a lot of little steps one can

• xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
  Why do you loathe the term "slippery slope?"
  • isthisthingon99 4y ago
    Because a few years ago they used that on gay marriage and they said no you will never have men dressed as women in libraries you're being silly. The slippery slope is a real thing. Entropy is real. It takes work to maintain moral behavior. Edit: some weirdo is going through my post history claiming this is phobic of something. What a weirdo.
  • richwater 4y ago
    His political views probably want a slippery slope in some policies.
  • kelnos 4y ago
    Because it's generally a dishonest way to drum up fear and outrage, and shut down discussion using hand-waving rather than facts.
  • tsuujin 4y ago
    Not really defending the OP here, but technically a slippery slope is a logical fallacy. It basically implies that any situation will eventually result in the most extreme outcome; e.g., if you let a barber cut your hair, eventually they’ll start lopping off limbs too. It is, of course, not actually used in this manner typically; but, it is probably important to remember that not all things push to absurdity I guess.
    • toast0 4y ago
      > if you let a barber cut your hair, eventually they’ll start lopping off limbs too. Historically, they might have, but we decided barbers shouldn't be healthcare providers and now we have a shortage of healthcare providers.
      • visarga 4y ago
        Oh, if it's barber-level health care you want, it's going to be cheaper than regular health care.
    • CPLX 4y ago
      > if you let a barber cut your hair, eventually they’ll start lopping off limbs too. This literally happened until the government eventually stepped in to regulate it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • michaelt 4y ago
    Not the OP, but in my experience "slippery slope" is basically an admission the real situation actually isn't bad enough to convince the audience and you have to instead present an imaginary bad situation. For example, before gay marriage was legalised I heard people claim legalising gay marriage was a slippery slope to allowing paedophilia and bestiality. This has not proved to be the case in reality.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • xwdv 4y ago
      While I loathe the term slippery slope, my reasons are different. Opponents of slippery slopes like to make the assumption the slope is steeper than what the original author may have had in mind. And so because we don’t find ourselves slipping down the slope fast enough, they declare the original argument bunk. For example, in your argument about gay marriage, we haven’t accepted pedophilia and bestiality yet. But how long has gay marriage been legalized? What if the slope to pedophilia is 50 years long? We don’t know if in the future the stigma of being a “minor attracted person” will have worn off and people will be permitted to marry whoever or whatever they want without restrictions. Indeed, if someone will be happy marrying a dog because they have no faith in dating culture in the year 2060, why stop them? There is precedent for expanding the definition of marriage. What is the harm, especially as marriage grows increasingly meaningless and only provides an economic benefit? So yea I hate slippery slopes. They are easily misrepresented.
  • ghaff 4y ago
    Because you can pretty much extrapolate from whatever limited policy you don't like to essentially any arbitrary draconian and bad actions.
• indymike 4y ago
  It's not a slippery slope, it's a cliff with banana peels on the ledge.
• atkailash 4y ago
  [dead]
• was_a_dev 4y ago
  Interesting use of a contrived example
• hammock 4y ago
  Is it all that different from doing a background check on any one who wants to, e.g. work at your company, date your daughter, or visit the White House?
  • filoleg 4y ago
    > Is it all that different from doing a background check on any one who wants to, e.g. work at your company, date your daughter, or visit the White House? Yeah, it is different, because a background check doesn't show anything related to your political beliefs. I might be forgetting some small details, but it is basically just criminal history + employment history + address history + some basic finance stuff like credit scores. Also, running a background check on someone who wants to date your daughter is kinda weird. I hope that a potential suitor encountering such a background check would laugh and walk away the second they get asked.
    • hammock 4y ago
      You might be thinking of “background check” as something different from what I am thinking. If my daughter is dating a boy I’m going to ask around about the guy in whatever ways I want. I’m not limiting myself to the attributes you listed. That was my point. Likewise if it’s my company, I can reject whatever job candidate I want for whatever reason I want, as long as I am following relevant non-discrimination laws etc. If I want to reject you because you wrote nasty things about me, which turned up in a google search (background check), I probably can
      • filoleg 4y ago
        > You might be thinking of “background check” as something different from what I am thinking. Oh yeah, good catch, I indeed was thinking of a different kind of a background check. I was thinking of an actual employer/police/financing/etc. type of a background check, which is pretty standardized in its scope. Thanks for elaborating on it btw, I think I get your point now.
• patrick451 4y ago
  I loathe the idea that a slippery slope is a logical fallacy. If you believe that, you reject all of science and predictive frameworks in general. You must look at a falling stone and believe we have no reason to think it will soon hit the ground.
  • tsuujin 4y ago
    That isn’t a slippery slope. That’s cause and effect. A slippery slope would be “if we let that rock fall, soon it will be all rocks, and bigger rocks, and they’ll fall faster and faster until all life has ended, so legislate against falling rocks today”.
• rayiner 4y ago
  > There's nothing illegal about doing that Depends where you are. Insofar as a concert is deemed a “public accommodation” that would probably be illegal under the DC Human Rights Act, which covers political affiliation along with a bunch of other things. The federal government is narrowly circumscribed in how it can address these things but the state governments have general police powers and are not so limited.
  • notch656c 4y ago
    The federal government doesn't seem to be so limited. They conjured up the authority for the Civil Rights Act out of thin air, limiting intrastate commerce in this way with no clear constitutional authority to do so. Hell Wickard v Filburn says the feds can tell you whether you can grow your own feed and feed it to your animals as that is "interstate commerce." Therefore picking who can enter is interstate commerce, no?
    • freejazz 4y ago
      How are you citing these cases and holding this, completely ridiculous position on the civil rights act, while simultaneously not understanding that attorneys aren't a protected class under the act?
      • notch656c 4y ago
        I'm aware they aren't a protected class. My position is clearly this isn't something just deferred to the state police powers. The fed can conjure up, via the interstate commerce clause, the requirement that businesses not discriminate even for local intrastate trade.
        • freejazz 4y ago
          If you think that logic applies to the few attys that go to MSG, I think you should read back on those cases. I'm curious if you went to law school or not.