Flex and Frooms flexen fromes. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast. It's not often that we have a bit of a listener letter trying to call us in, call us out, but I do appreciate it because it is a teachable moment. This person who dmeds us wants to know a little bit more about logical fallacies. So they've got a question for me that I've previously spoken on my old podcast about logical fallacies. But to this day she's shook by my frequent use of the phrase
slippery slope aka a logical fallacy. Thoughts, comments, defense, attack, You're lucky, am in a fighting move, babe, sast thing First, a slippery slope argument is not a slippery slope fallacy. You're getting them confused. A slippery slope fallacy is when a person asserts or claims that a relatively small step will lead to a chain of events that result in a drastic change or a negative outcome, right and catastrophizing.
So yes, A slippery slope argument is the argument that if I do this small thing, it could have a drastic effect in future. For example, if today I decide I'm going to do the small thing. It never text anyone back like it's a little thing to me. It could have the drastic effect that I lose all of my friends in ten years because I just never text anyone.
That's a slippery slope argument. A slippery slope fallacy is me saying the reason why I won't have friends in ten years is probably because I didn't go to that one public girl's birthday and she definitely told another friend of mine that I was a bad friend, and then she told it's making these big presumptions and not connecting it in a logical or clear way. It's my brain.
So when I say slippery slope in the context of it's a slippery slope to be coming on the radio and encouraging people to to do hypergame right, to date upwards, the slippery slope is that if I encourage you to go and date upwards, date rich, we're not preparing you for the reality that when it's not achievble for the most people, but it can create a really abusive dynamic when you are relying on one person for all of your needs, you put yourself in a very precarious situation.
And it's not all it's choked up to be right. It's not just like, oh, it's gonna pay for all my meals. No, this person might leave you in a position where you cannot literally fend for yourself unless you staying that in that dynamic. That is a slippery slope.
It's a slippery slope to tell everyone, wait, slippery slope fallacy or slippery argument, Like, it's a slippery slope argument to tell everyone that what people think about you is not your business, okay, because we could argue that, yes, if you relieve yourself of caring about what everybody thinks, you might get to the point where you know, you lose the ability of reason with other people, and you become a bit more subjective, maybe a bit more prickly,
Like there are consequences for not caring about the way that you're perceived. You might become more ignorant, you might become more unaware of the world around you. You might find it more difficult to connect with other people. That is a slippery slope argument. We can understand how you could get to that conclusion. A slippery slope fallacy is to say that a slippery slope fallacy is that if I don't take every sponsored content job that comes to me,
I'll never make money again. Yeah, it's not true. Like we could say that in some ways, it's possible, but it's not true because how do I make my money. I've got other businesses. I'm an author, I'm a DJ. There are other ways to make money. So if I stop doing this one gig, I will be fine. I understand. So the slippery slope argument is not a slippery slope fallacy.
The two saying slippery slope relies on you to use your context clues to figure out if it's a fallacy or an argument, And whether or not it's a fallacy or an argument depends on how you see the world. Also, every time you said slippery slop, I'll just genuinely like,
picture a slippery slope. Yeah, an avalanche. But it's an important thing to recognize because when you are speaking to someone you don't really know well, also, you don't know whether or they're talking about a fallacy or an argument, especially when talking about their own situation, because we do catastrophize a lot, we do. You know. We spoke to Clementine Ford the other day and she has a new book coming out. It's called I Don't it's the case
against marriage. Someone could say a slippery slope argument is that as women, if we don't get married, we might not be happy in future. Slippery slope argument or it could be a fallacy. We don't know, but how you position it for yourself is what matters the most. But this is also why we don't argue for fun exactly, because whether or it's a fallacy or an argument depends on how you perceive my message. You've been listening to
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