Aside from the nitpick of spelling "would" as "wood," you go wrong when you miss that the underlying problem that makes slippery slope a fallacy is assuming that something is binary when it is not. If the core question is actually binary, there is no slippery slope fallacy.
I think we are agreeing here. Indeed I would say that is my point.
Here is what I see happening:
1) Something is proposed
2) The unwashed masses say, "Oh no, that is a slippery slope which will lead us to all of these horribles!"
3) The hoi poloi shake their heads and say, "Ah, they fell for the slippery slope fallacy... again."
4) The horribles start happening
5)... and no one goes back and examines the issue and realises that there was no actual slippery slope fallacy involved. What the unwashed masses saw (but did not state correctly) was a broken binary. The hoi poloi missed the binary as well (or saw it and ignored it because they wanted it broken).
Oh I understood what you were getting at - I'm not sure though that your whole essay makes sense without a few strong examples. In some cases, there actually *is* a slippery slope without a clear binary.
Thanks for he edit... but I assume you know that it wasn't my mistake, it was that I type a lot of things in by voice recognition... and spell correct doesn't catch those kind of mistakes. Altho I'm thinking they will soon.
Aside from the nitpick of spelling "would" as "wood," you go wrong when you miss that the underlying problem that makes slippery slope a fallacy is assuming that something is binary when it is not. If the core question is actually binary, there is no slippery slope fallacy.
I think we are agreeing here. Indeed I would say that is my point.
Here is what I see happening:
1) Something is proposed
2) The unwashed masses say, "Oh no, that is a slippery slope which will lead us to all of these horribles!"
3) The hoi poloi shake their heads and say, "Ah, they fell for the slippery slope fallacy... again."
4) The horribles start happening
5)... and no one goes back and examines the issue and realises that there was no actual slippery slope fallacy involved. What the unwashed masses saw (but did not state correctly) was a broken binary. The hoi poloi missed the binary as well (or saw it and ignored it because they wanted it broken).
The hoi polloi *are* the unwashed masses.
Oh, argh. What is the word like that that means the opposite?
"The elite"?
Try 'the gentry'. Does it make more sense now?
Oh I understood what you were getting at - I'm not sure though that your whole essay makes sense without a few strong examples. In some cases, there actually *is* a slippery slope without a clear binary.
Really? Do you have an example where:
1) The elites proposed something
2) The masses objected claiming slippery slope
3) The things that the masses said would happen did happen and
4) You can't think of a binary that was broken along the way?
I'm not the one writing the article; it is not up to me to come up with examples.
Thanks for he edit... but I assume you know that it wasn't my mistake, it was that I type a lot of things in by voice recognition... and spell correct doesn't catch those kind of mistakes. Altho I'm thinking they will soon.