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Vaniver comments on Schelling fences on slippery slopes - Less Wrong
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That's really vague. Examples would help, preferably ones from long ago so as to avoid the mind-killer: for instance, the Reign of Terror could be an example of a slippery slope.
The other side, of course, is that not all slippery slopes lead to bad outcomes- consider the civil rights movement.
Anyway, of course every policy change affects the likelihood of other policy changes, but only occasionally is it a runaway effect- usually it stops there or peters out.
Senses of history are vague, but still informative. It's not clear to me there's much value in digging up examples.
I don't consider 1950 to be long ago.
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.
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.