Nisan comments on Rationality Quotes March 2012 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Thomas 03 March 2012 08:04AM

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Comment author: Nisan 13 March 2012 10:54:11PM 8 points [-]

Related to Schelling fences on slippery slopes:

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.

— Thomas De Quincey

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 14 March 2012 11:59:23PM 6 points [-]

I don't get this quote, it strikes me as wit with no substance.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 15 March 2012 01:01:27AM 2 points [-]

Presumably the quote is from De Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts", and with that context & perspective in mind it has a tad more substance.

Comment author: Nisan 15 March 2012 06:36:26PM 1 point [-]

Me too, honestly.

Comment author: kdorian 24 March 2012 09:54:49PM 0 points [-]

I have always read it as intentionally ironic commentary on the 'slippery slope' more than anything else.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 24 March 2012 10:36:49PM 2 points [-]

I read it more specifically as a parody of moral slipperyslopism, in which slight moral infractions lead to the worst sort of behavior.

Arguably, we live in an era strongly shaped by revulsion at moral slipperyslopism.

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