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Comment by xyzzy_plugh | Hacker News Reader

Why do you loathe the term "slippery slope?"

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

Oh, if it's barber-level health care you want, it's going to be cheaper than regular health care.

> 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

Because you can pretty much extrapolate from whatever limited policy you don't like to essentially any arbitrary draconian and bad actions.

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.

Because it's generally a dishonest way to drum up fear and outrage, and shut down discussion using hand-waving rather than facts.

His political views probably want a slippery slope in some policies.

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