• electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    What about the slippery slope of slippery slopes? Once you give in to fear about slippery slopes, where will it end? You’ll never be able to say no (or yes) to anything again!

    • Gaywallet (they/it)@beehaw.org
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      2 years ago

      Exercising judgement is a difficult act, but not one that is black or white. It shouldn’t be painted as something that is or isn’t, either. A slippery slope either existing or not is a false dichotomy trying to shoehorn a complicated situation into an on/off configuration.

      Calling the application of social pressure to get cloudflare to stop enabling hate a slippery slope is ignoring that it’s arguably the first instance of something like this to happen, it took an enormous amount of effort for it to happen, while it was not happening the livelihoods of individuals were being harassed, harmed, and destroyed, and it involved a private enterprise making a decision for themselves and is not reflective of how others in the industry will respond.

      Of important framing, did we call the workers rights movement a slippery slope? Racial justice? Feminism? I think the more contentious the public perception is of a movement, the more likely people are to call something enabling said movement a slippery slope. However, on the opposite side of things we usually recognize the reduction or removal of human rights or governmental representation universally as a slippery slope when the issue is no longer contentious or is broad enough to apply to all individuals (while nobles may have framed the rise of democracies as a slippery slope away from monarchistic and feudal governmental systems, I doubt the same was said by the majority of individuals who stood to benefit from this paradigm shift). Applying the wording of ‘slippery slope’ to make demons out of issues they simply disagree with seemingly only happens by conservative individuals to protect a worldview that suppresses others.

      • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        I agree with you. People forget that ‘slippery slope’ is a logical fallacy, ie, ‘slippery slope fallacy’. It’s like when homophobes say that allowing gay marriage will lead to people marrying their dog or something. Like, no the fuck it won’t.