The Slippery Slope Is Not a Fallacy

>presumer

Eh. I've been using assumer and arse-sumer, for the exact same meaning. e.g. "the four donkeymen of Reddit: the assumer, the dichotomiser, the illiterate, and the genetic fallacist".

On-topic. The issue with slippery slopes is that, by chaining arguments, you're increasing the likelihood that your conclusion is incorrect. Lemme give you guys an abstract example:

* Premise 1. if A happens, then B will happen.

* Premise 2. if B happens, then C will happen.

* [...]

* Premise 6. if F happens, then G will happen.

* Conclusion: if A happens, then G will happen.

That only looks sensible until you ask yourself "how much do I trust each of those premises?". Even if you put 90% trust at each of those six premises, the conclusion has only (90%)⁶ = 53% trust, it's on the same level as a coin toss.

(If this reminds anyone about Ockham's Razor: yup, it's the same reasoning.)

The Wikipedia entry for Slippery Slope even has a whole section on non-fallacious uses, and I think the definition on this other list of fallacies provides another reasonable explanation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

http://www.csun.edu/%7Edgw61315/fallacies.html#Slippery%20sl...

"Slippery Slope" is generally classified as an "informal fallacy".

It's not an example of defective logic, like the formal fallacies; it's a kind of persuasive argument that needs careful examination, because it may or may not be applicable in specific circumstances.

I can tell you from years of online debate that I have had with individuals, it pretty much boils down constantly to presumption, strawmen and 'so what you are saying is' all day. Nowadays you can't discuss anything without someone presuming a position you take on it, and immediately responding or attack you personally without ever addressing the correct argument. Most people simply do not know how to have a conversation, and here we are in 2021 going down a slippery slope to it's expected, and not surprising end conclusion - as people waste time constantly accusing you of a position. After about the 3rd time I won't even bother with them, as I am not going to participate in a discussion where it's me DEFENDING myself or denying their constant strawmanning 99% of the time.

> Please focus on the post, not the rest of my website. For some reason, a lot of you like to do that.

Please don't hope this will work; I might not have looked at the rest of your site had you not said anything, and it distracted me from even reading your argument.

This summary of the common disingenuousness of Apple defenders is decent IMO but the associations this post makes to other socially controversial debates is not helpful. The COVID precautions mentioned are designed to protect the entire population of the world and all of our tools in that fight depend on massive social cooperation. The proportion of the population who need an exemption from COVID measures is very small. With CSAM the situation is reversed. The entire population of iPhone users is now subject to a precaution that is needed only for a very small proportion of the population. To my mind, the test if whether someone is debating in good faith on this topic is whether they are willing and able to provide a limiting principle to the new invasive capability. If there is no limit to an invasion of privacy it shouldn't be allowed. From what I've read, Apple's tech seems promising but all such tech will have false hits. There will be human processes required to safeguard against those spiraling out of control in the life of their users. I wish they would disclose more details about those processes.

Trump let a big chunk of the Patriot Act expire, and other parts got stripped out along the way. I think it's more expired than not now.