satt comments on Schelling fences on slippery slopes - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Will_Newsome 16 March 2012 11:47:21PM *  2 points [-]

Good point, but still: does anyone know of any slippery slope [ETA: by which I mean a cascade of self-reinforcing changes in laws or social norms] that most everyone can agree was clearly not-bad? I ask because there are various theoretical reasons why one should almost never expect slippery slopes to have good consequences, but if empirically that's not the case then I need to revise my sociological and historiographical models.

(ETA2: My bad, I confused levels of abstraction; I agree with the criticisms that such an analysis is unfeasible even if possible.)

Comment author: satt 17 March 2012 01:21:37AM *  1 point [-]

does anyone know of any slippery slope that most everyone can agree was clearly not-bad?

I doubt it, but because of the difficulty of citing any such social or political change, rather than because of some special property of slippery slopes.

Edit: oops, didn't see TimS beat me.