Beware of Slip­pery Slopes!

The wind howls around you as the gusts enve­lope your body.  The view is spectacular–yet terrifying–as you inch your way along the cliff face, away from dan­ger.  If only you were pay­ing more atten­tion when you adven­tured off the path.  It seemed like a good idea, you wanted a piece of unex­plored beauty to call your own.  Alas, this led to a series of events which cul­mi­nated in you hang­ing on to your wits, 200 feet above the ground.  If you make it through this you will know bet­ter next time.  You will warn every­one to never leave the pre­des­tined paths.  Even if it seems like a good idea, one thing will lead to another and another and BAM!  Windy cliff!

The future is both excit­ing and scary at the same time.  The past is our only guide in decid­ing which paths to take.  Past expe­ri­ence is rid­dled with warn­ings that led us to bad sit­u­a­tions, thus we avoid repeats and warn oth­ers about our expe­ri­ences all the time (I would wager that mis­takes are one of the top things we mon­keys like to rem­i­nisce about).

So, why is this a fal­lacy?  Is it not a good thing to be cau­tious?  To learn from our mis­takes and to help oth­ers along as well?

Absolutely!  How­ever, the prob­lem with a Slip­pery Slope is that it is naive.  It does not account for the vast­ness of pos­si­bil­i­ties that are per­mit­ted in the uni­verse.  To tell your friends not to wan­der off the path because you will end up on a windy cliff is not a likely con­se­quent, even though it is a pos­si­bil­ity.  Just because it hap­pened to you is merely anec­do­tal and is only one morsel of data, hardly enough to base a con­clu­sion off of.  Sure, if thou­sands of peo­ple per year needed to be res­cued from that cliff then a Slip­pery Slope Ahead sign would be war­ranted (but that would be a proper argu­ment.)  Slip­pery slopes con­fuse what is pos­si­ble with what is prob­a­ble, and spec­u­late a num­ber of improb­a­ble steps that will gen­er­ate the improb­a­ble outcome.

In this type of argu­ment it is alleged in the premises that a pro­posed action–which, con­sid­ered in itself, might seem good–would set off a series of fur­ther actions cul­mi­nat­ing in calamity.  For this rea­son, it is con­cluded that the pro­posed action is wrong or should not be done.

- A Prac­ti­cal Study of Argument

Rarely are these anec­do­tal sto­ries tal­lied up before a judge­ment is passed.  After the tale is told, the lis­tener will either return a sim­i­lar story, or they will remark on the extra­or­di­nary event.  In the for­mer, the lis­tener is cor­rob­o­rat­ing and sup­port­ing the anec­dote, lead­ing to a false cre­dence which strength­ens the weak argu­ment; in the lat­ter, the lis­tener will either take heed or shrug if off as just a ran­dom event that could hap­pen to anyone.

Tak­ing from the Poor to give to the Rich will lead to COMMUNISM!!!

Down­load­ing MP3’s leads to Communism?

The bail-outs are a vio­la­tion of cap­i­tal­ism and will encour­age busi­nesses to con­tinue to make absurd risks.  If we allow them, then we will need to bail out the nation every few years until we end up with absolute communism!

Yes, the bailouts are not cap­i­tal­is­tic (they’re not com­mu­nis­tic, either).  Yes, busi­nesses should be pun­ished with bank­ruptcy when they do not per­form prop­erly or take reck­less risks.  How­ever, is it not pos­si­ble that there are occa­sional excep­tions to this ideal?  If the bailouts never hap­pened, and we let our economies crash, where would we be now?  Smug in our prin­ci­pals with two carts at the gro­cery store (one for your gro­ceries, the other for your cash.)  Although it remains to be seen, I do not believe that the bailouts are the road to communism.

Some­times, although rarely, our bod­ies will need a defib­ril­la­tors shock, but that doesn’t mean we are going to be even more dis­re­spect­ful to our bio­log­i­cal economies just because we know that help is 10,000 volts away.

Many other events would have to ensue before a nation will turn from Cap­i­tal­ist to Com­mu­nist, and prop­ping the econ­omy up with tax money is only one of many fac­tors that need to align.  I am not try­ing to say that bailouts are great and should be tol­er­ated, but I do think it’s fal­la­cious to assume that it will lead us to Stal­in­ist Russia.

Imag­ine ten years later… you may come across this blog and laugh at me for being wrong.  Indeed, the west­ern world has become com­pletely state-run, through and through.  Woe is us!  Well, wait a sec­ond, if you think that makes me “wrong” about the Slip­pery Slope then you may be miss­ing the point here.  I am not say­ing that the bailouts will NOT lead to the above sce­nario, what I am say­ing is that the bailouts alone are not enough sup­port to lead to such a dras­tic con­clu­sion.  We may indeed be on the road to com­mu­nism, but there will need to be coups, com­pletely cor­po­rate buy­outs, rad­i­cal changes to our con­sti­tu­tions, etc. that need to hap­pen as well.  I remains skep­ti­cal that the bailouts alone will cause such a domino effect.

Stick to the Facts

The bot­tom line is that we need to be care­ful with our pro­jec­tions.  We can barely pre­dict the weather beyond two weeks, how are we going to pre­dict human behav­ior three years in advance?  Take each point slowly and care­fully and before jump­ing to wild con­clu­sions make sure that each chain of cause and effect is not merely pos­si­ble, but prob­a­ble as well!  Stick to the facts and you won’t slip!

Your Turn

I’m sure every­one has had a sit­u­a­tion where they were fooled or con­vinced by a poorly rea­soned Slip­pery Slope pro­jec­tion, share it here for all to learn from!