Vaniver comments on Schelling fences on slippery slopes - Less Wrong

179 Post author: Yvain 16 March 2012 11:44PM

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Comment author: Vaniver 14 March 2012 02:00:49AM 11 points [-]

That's really vague.

Senses of history are vague, but still informative. It's not clear to me there's much value in digging up examples.

preferably ones from long ago

I don't consider 1950 to be long ago.

that not all slippery slopes lead to bad outcomes

No, and I did not mean to imply that they did. Many intentionally begin slippery slopes to lead to outcomes they like; foot-in-the-door techniques can be seen as an example. The takeaway is that the slippery slope meme doesn't appear to actually be fallacious- if you think that A will increase the chance of B, and you dislike B, it's often the correct strategic move to oppose A, even if you think A in isolation is a good thing. The challenge is getting the correct model of how A will impact the chances of B.

Comment author: orthonormal 14 March 2012 04:20:43PM 1 point [-]

I don't think we disagree here. As far as 1950 being "long ago", my point was that I picked examples that I really don't expect to be live issues for Less Wrong readers; there were other issues being discussed in 1950 that are still subjects of disagreement between LW-type people, and those I shouldn't use.