Can you outsmart the slippery slope fallacy? - Elizabeth Cox 

TW: Please note that this video features a strobe effect at 5:28.

For being a Demon of Reason, you think by now he remember to bring his own suit

Every parent and teacher telling you that one bad grade will lead to you being homeless 😠

"Don't worry, I may have that power, but I promise not to use it." TedED knows how much we like to see him stealing clothes🤣

*_"The possibilities are not a chain -- they're a web."_* My favorite quote from this episode!

A few extra insights on slippery slopes: Most slippery slope arguments assume no intervention - no risk mitigation. This is like assuming once you get on a highway, you can't get off the highway until you reach the very end. That point brings up a good way to address slippery slope arguments instead of dismissing them outright. Accept the risks as valid concerns and develop a risk-mitigation plan to prevent those outcomes from happening. This is not unlike deciding which offramp you'll take before you end up at the end of the highway.

Ok, but can we talk about how cool his apartment/house is? The demon of reason has a sense of style despite having a very empty closet.

Oversimplified was right. Drawing Eisenhower is very hard

so, basically, in order to avoid falling for the fallacy, instead of saying "A *will* result in B", one just needs to say "A *can* result in B", since the problem is the certainty of the catastrophic outcome the subject is supposedly trying to avoid

Is the reason he always swaps outfits meant to be a reference to the Emperor Has No Clothes fable? Since in every episode he’s disproving an argument someone is making (thus showing that the emperor ‘has no clothes’)

I think it's also worth pointing out that what ultimately brought down Cambodia's genocidal government was a war with Vietnam. So while communism initially spread to Vietnam's neighboring countries, it's not like they were all buddy-buddy

The demon of reason's back, and I couldn't be more excited.

I love how his last sentence is a slippery slope fallacy.

Good on TedEd for actually teaching critical thinking skills with these videos. The world sorely needs them.

0:17 The Canadian River continuously apologizing as it breaks the poor beaver's log dam.

“Only 78%…far from an inevitability.” Uh, yeah. If something was 78% likely to kill me, I’m not taking those chances.

I love these series with demon of reason!!! Made my dayyy~

As others in the comments section have pointed out, this video mischaracterizes the slippery slope argument with regard to the premise laid out in the opening quote from Alfred Acorn. It’s not the probability of a particular series of events unfolding to a very particular ultimate outcome (unless you’re the Kwisatz Haderach). It refers to the notion that once some moral or ideological thresholds are crossed, further reaches become increasingly indefensible. So you often hear “slippery slope” used in free speech arguments. For example, if we allow the powers that be punish speech that's deemed offensive, what’s to stop them from preventing any speech just because they don’t like it and who becomes the arbiter of what's considered offensive? From there, could they compel speech that suits their motives? And if so, what are the punishments for infractions? Fines? Imprisonment?

The most illogical thing in these videos is the fact that everyone lets the demon talk and just listen.

video: "can you outsmar-" me: no next question

my favourite thing about these videos is how accurate the lip-syncing is and im not sure why!

I may not know the anatomy of the demon of reason, but that back posture certainly doesn't look comfortable.

Unfortunately, Domino Theory led to the US propping up hard right dictators in many nations, especially Central America, the consequences of which we are still dealing with today.

I'm happy to see this becoming a series like "history vs".

Great logical breakdown of the slippery slope fallacy. However, most of the time people who use it are reacting to fear or at least using fear to manipulate and absolutely refuse to look at or acknowledge logic and reason. Where we make the mistake is to constantly engage the manipulator and try to change their minds, which is not going to happen, especially when we keep featuring them and giving them a platform and recognition. We should be engaging the rest of people with logic, reason, and education and show them how to combat manipulation of emotions (like this video is doing).

For people who don't agree with the logic explained here. The demon doesn't have an issue with talking about possibilities that may or may not happen, or events that don't have a 100% chance of happening. Sure, discuss all possible scenarios, especially the one extreme case you're worried might happen. The issue here is that politicians tend to exaggerate some extreme event as something which is inevitable, simply to suit their own political goals. Misinforming the people, using fear-mongering to justify your wars. Maybe don't lie to your people? And don't exaggerate stuff just to justify your political stance.

I really liked the set up, but I had hoped this video would explain the difference between slippery slopes that are true and slippery slopes that are false. For example, one effect can make another independent effect more likely and it is important to stay wary of how seemingly independent events can reinforce each other. A lot of the time, such seemingly independent events will be described fallaciously as being a slippery slope argument when it's a description of a systemic failure. This video doesn't do a good job explaining that.

Who else remembers Vaccine Passports being a slippery slope fallacy?

After I had seen this video, I realized many outcome we didn't even think might be possible from something we would have done. I love this series!

These are great videos. It's easy to dismiss them as overly simple, pedantic, or basic common sense, but you have to remind yourself that people, masses of people, actually fall down these pits and cause events that change the world. I do believe a certain wall in American politics is very related to a slippery slope argument, and look at the following it earned its proponent. The most important thing is to remember that you're probably not immune to the pits yourself, though, and these videos are clear-cut reminders of the idea.

The main trouble I have seen from the almost-intelligent is they leap from "Slippery slope is a fallacy!" to "Slippery slopes cannot happen!" which is a similar fallacy just with the probability inverted.

Please make a playlist containing all the fallacy. This stuff is brilliant!

A Demon of Reason video about Vietnamese history and posted right on the celebration of the August Revolution is just what we need! Thanks a lot @TED-Ed!!

This is my favorite series! Thanks for posting another one!

The problem with the "slippery slope" is that as much as it can be used to justify action were it is not needed calling it a fallacy can equally be used to justify inaction were action is very much needed. allowing things to fester and get worse. I have seen the latter play out way too many times in my life to believe it's right to call the "slippery slope" a fallacy.

The problem isn’t that such an event is “inevitable”, just that we should treat it as such. There are countless examples of slippery slopes that have happened and especially when each step is catastrophic at some level then it becomes more dire. As the outcome increases in how severe the result would be, the more you have to treat it like it’s a guarantee, even if it’s not. Anything that threatens the well fare of millions should be treated like it’s inevitable even if it’s a small chance. The worse the possible result, the more you need to treat it like it will happen. 50/50 odds that you might run out of milk over the weekend? Who cares. A 0.1% chance millions of people will die? Pour everything you’ve got into it to make sure that we get the number lower.

For those who don't want to read my entire reply below (TL;DR), this video is, sadly, of pretty poor quality to most put out in this series. President Eisenhower's answer, as directly quoted from Public Papers of the Presidents, 1954, p. 382: "You have, of course, both the specific and the general when you talk about such things. "First of all, you have the specific value of a locality in its production of materials that the world needs. "Then you have the possibility that many human beings pass under a dictatorship that is inimical to the free world. "Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the 'falling domino' principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences. "Now, with respect to the first one, two of the items from this particular area that the world uses are tin and tungsten. They are very important. There are others, of course, the rubber plantations and so on. "Then with respect to more people passing under this domination, Asia, after all, has already lost some 450 million of its peoples to the Communist dictatorship, and we simply can't afford greater losses. "But when we come to the possible sequence of events, the loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following, now you begin to talk about areas that not only multiply the disadvantages that you would suffer through loss of materials, sources of materials, but now you are talking really about millions and millions and millions of people. "Finally, the geographical position achieved thereby does many things. It turns the so-called island defensive chain of Japan, Formosa, of the Philippines and to the southward; it moves in to threaten Australia and New Zealand. "It takes away, in its economic aspects, that region that Japan must have as a trading area or Japan, in turn, will have only one place in the world to go- that is, toward the Communist areas in order to live. "So, the possible consequences of the loss are just incalculable to the free world." You'll notice a few things, maybe. If you don't, let me point them out for you. 1. The statement alluded to in the video was not an individual statement, but rather a listing of several considerations when approaching Policy in the region. 2. The entirety of the third consideration, the focal point of the basis of this video, uses language multiple times such as "might", "could", and "possible." However, at timestamp 1:15, and these are your words exact, you claim "Eisenhower claims, that by virtue of what he calls the "falling domino principle", Communist control of Vietnam would be the "beginning of a disintegration" that would be certain to cause "incalculable loss." You use his quote, but you quote him incorrectly. His statement is that the third consideration "might" be of something, an analogy for that thing, followed by "could have" an outcome that "would have" profound influences. 3. While we're on the topic of the "Falling Domino" principle, at timestamp 1:10, you point out President Eisenhower's mention of the "falling domino pollicy with the words, and I quote, "what he calls the "falling domino principle." This doesn't mean he coined the phrase or originated the idea. But the wording of your call out is misleading. Intentional? The point is, the first mentions and uses of the "principle" are generally attributed to President Harry S. Truman in the 1940's, to justify sending support to Greece and Turkey. 4. Finally, as President Eisenhower points out in his last sentence, all the preceding points to his third consideration are "possible consequences" and that the extent of those consequences are incalculable. That is, from point a in the argument to point zed, there is a path. It is a "possible path." President Eisenhower may even have believed it was the probable path. His point was that if, if that path progressed to point zed, the loss would be incalculable. Of course, let's not forget that there have been many examples through history since then of just such attempts at 'exporting' control and Communism past the borders of the USSR, and in the guise of a freely elected government, Russia in the more current time. And lastly, even when an argument depends on the possibility of a chain of events you may deem a 'slippery slope' argument, that reliance does not necessarily invalidate that argument. There are many examples of action taken on strings of chance happenings, each dependent on the prior step. What makes these arguments compelling is the consideration of the relationship of risk to impact. You may rightly point out that at each step the odds of a thing happening drop, versus my argument that they may still happen. But if the impact of that event is consequential enough, it must still be valid. The steps, or web of possible steps, to being struck by lightning are there being a storm, one of us being outside, a lightning strike happening, that bolt strikes you or me. That's a horrible framework for the argument that in a storm you and I should remain safely inside. And yet, it's not an invalid argument in relation to both the possible outcome should you or I be struck and the fact that people have been struck. Of all your videos, this one is the only to not sit well with me. But I must say it sits rather poorly. .

Ultimately the issue is that you just don’t know what the numbers are or how long the chain is.... it’s only a fallacy insofar as the steps aren’t logical progressions and there are excessive numbers of steps. 4-5 reasonably likely steps leading to an outcome is not a necessarily a fallacy

The problem is that the "slippery slope fallacy" argument is nowadays used too often automatically and without justification, as a response to any warning or any reasonable justified prediction. If we say something is unsustainable, no matter how many proofs we give, the standard response of many will be "it's a slippery slope fallacy, so you are wrong and I am right!"

Slippery slope arguments usually rest on the idea that human beings respect precedents and clear boundary lines, but once those precedents and boundary lines are broken, it is hard to establish new ones. Due to human psychology, they are usually not fallacies.

just a greeting from Vietnam, btw, 19/August/1945 marked the day of our revolution against French and Japanese

I covered this topic last year in my American history class and its always cool to see topics you know about get covered here

Thank you for giving the actual fear and reasoning behind the Domino Theory some focus. It may have been a fallacy, but it wasn’t the “if one nation falls then any nation can fall” most people today paint it as.

I love the Demon of Reason bits! The logic is exciting, and the voice acting and animation are spot on

I love that they’re doing more of these videos. I love the demon of reason

Totally signifies the legends whom were once portrayed like underachievers

I love the sound effect that plays when he makes a portal

These along with the riddle videos are among my favorites from TED-Ed

I feel like if everyone took a stats class the world would get along better

I love these fallacy videos! Keep it up! Would love to learn more

These videos are fantastic. Would love to see all the logical fallacies tackled. Excellent work!

i always love this series! Hoping for more content with our demon of reason 💓

Can't wait to tune into my favorite news station that tells me the exact date and current political events every time it starts up

Per Dan Olsen and Ian from innuendo studios' videos, often statements are made in bad faith, knowing the argument either holds no ground, or feature various logical fallacy. Some people support those points because of what those statements are meant to protect.

Although I appreciate the point and the concept of slippery slopes, a situation like the Cold War and the Vietnam war are much easier judged in hindsight then in the heat of the moment. It’s, of course, so much easier to judge Russian/Soviet communism 30 years later, compared to living in it at the time.

Something to ponder is how falsly accusing an argument the Slippery Slope fallacy can also be an issue. I've seen people with only a phantom of logical knowledge claim any argument that presents a likely solution is a slippery slope. There's a difference between saying (A will cause Z, 100%) and (A will likely cause B), especially if there's evidence of such a case.

Around 4th minute you mention steps A-Z leading to something and their probabilities. However, you're entirely omitting the fact that there can be a number of ways for A to lead to Z. If, for example, our A is a cup being thrown from our hand, and Z being the cup's contents spilled, we can have a number of middle steps. The cup can fall on the ground, it can hit a wall, it can smash against the ceiling. Each possibility only has some likelihood, but overall likelihood of Z happening will be equal to their sum.

Assuming all the events in a chain are independent (3:00) isn't a reasonable assumption. When people are making a slippery slope argument, they are arguing precisely that the events are _not_ independent. And sure, assuming the events are independent makes the maths much, much less complicated, but I don't think that's a fair assumption to make in this kind of scenario. The principle the demon is making still stands, of course--that slippery slope arguments generally overstate the likelihood of the eventual outcome. I just wanted to nitpick this particular point.

The best series from this channel But I guess I could say that from anything that comes from here, just incredible

Thanks for making these videos! Love them.

If they ever make another adaptation of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, I nominate this voice actor to be the voice of AM.

This video seems to only debunk the "inevitable" slippery slope argument. Slippery slopes are still real things. They're just cautionary to what could happen instead of inevitable. Part of the defect in this video is that it only considers mindless statistical likelihood. But few things that concern humans to the point of worrying about a slippery slope are mindless statistical possibilities. They're more often driven by the determination of other humans to make it happen, and that throws the statistics all out of whack.

Please keep these coming!

Only Ted-Ed can make a complex lesson so fun!

Good points, but I usually hear slippery slopes as "A is happening now people are arguing for B and C, and the fringe wants everything from D to G. G is catastrophic and is adjacent to the worse H. Should we stop at A, B, or C?" I feel slippery slope gets misused often along that path. There's probably another fallacy at play. After some research Arguing from a Fallacy is also a fallacy.

I love these Demon of Reason videos Also the teleportation animation looks really cool

This video is fantastic! Congratulations on your valuable work!

I love these videos. So useful in the real world, and I think reason like this is really important.

Bro I sacrificed watching Netflix to watch the demon of reason and I'm not complaining about it

Demon of Reason: steals the president's clothes Mr President: _nods in absolute agreement_

The trick with slippery slope logic, is to show at least show 3 steps between them. By becoming a voice of reasoned warning, you become more convincing. As the end result is proven more likely, stronger action can be taken to prevent the ending. And I see a fallacy in the 99% for each step from A to Z. Once each step is taken, the chance for Z to be reached increases. For simplicity: the chance to flip 2 tails is 25%, while the chance with the second will flip tails once the first is tails is 50%.

Finally another episode of this series!

Ah, slippery slope. A fallacy until it isn’t.

Is it a logical fallacy to presume someone is speaking in absolute terms when they've made no such guarantee? This is a problem I've observed, regularly, in people who dismiss an argument as a "slippery slope fallacy," simply because their opponent predicted an outcome based on current circumstances remaining constant.

I love that the Demon of Reason touches a bit on fearmongering and catastrophizing with this fallacy! Great work from the team :)

Excellent logical argument! However, there is one example in the graphics which doesn’t belong, and as a mainframe programmer from the 1970s through the 2000s, I lived through the Y2K era. This, unlike the other examples, was NOT a case of the “slippery slope” being wrong, and ignored, proving that the concern was misplaced; in fact, there was not much “slope” involved, but there WAS a big problem, or rather a series of problems ranging in size from small to huge. Each computer system HAD to be modified to avoid its OWN bad outcomes, which would be 100% likely to happen if not fixed. Each unfixed system would have led to unwanted real world problems of various magnitudes (eg, a computer-controlled vault intended to be unlocked Monday through Friday would instead be unlocked Saturday through Wednesday until corrected, since 1/1/1900 was a Monday, but 1/1/2000 was a Saturday; or, someone born in 1935 and thus turning 65 during the year, would have been tagged in Social Security as -35 years old (or more likely the sign would be dropped), and thus not eligible for benefits until 2100!). To the extent that systems affect one another, more trouble would have been caused. So unlike the “slippery slope” being wrong, and ignored, proving there WAS no problem, the Y2K was a REAL problem, and once publicized, organizations responsible for ignoring it until 1990 went into OVERDRIVE, hiring MILLIONS of extra programmers to fix it, coordinating their efforts with one another, and getting (most) of the design bugs fixed before 1/1/2000. And shortly afterwards, the excess programmers were let go. So the effort to fix Y2K MAY have been responsible for PART of the Dot-Com bubble which burst shortly after that date!

Here's a physics perspective on this: if you're comparing something to dominoes you may as well be admiting defeat. An upright domino is a metastable state, it wants to fall over and is only waiting for the slightest excuse to do so. Stopping the first domino will not stop the last one from falling when a light breeze could cause any domino in the chain to go off. In comparing the red scare to a series of dominoes, Mr Eisenhower is inadvertently implying that the whole world actually really wants to be communist and is just waiting for a slight disturbance to catalyze that change.

The slippery slope logic can be used to debunk many conspiracy theories.

A new wind from TED-ed. So fascinating.

I was waiting for another one thank you

Just because something's a fallacy, doesn't mean the argument is wrong/bad. Fallacies only indicate logical gaps in argumentation, and should not be used to dismiss arguments. You should do an episode on "the Fallacy Fallacy" for all of the insufferable people in this comment section and around the world.

7:32 Sums up Human Imperfection in a shellnut.

omg i love this series, please do more!

As master yoga put it “fear leads to anger, anger lead to hate and hate leads to the darkside”

In poorly explaining a slippery slope he accidently disproved evolution.

Ah, I love this series :3

very informative, your Impartial approach is respectful between al these biased medias !

You: You shouldn't smoke that cigarette, it will lead you to addiction, many more cigarettes and eventually lung cancer! Me, enlightened: *chuckles* Well, actually

2:07 me: you can do that? *in demon of reason voice* really?

"Babe wake up, a new Demon of Reason video just dropped." not my comment, somebody else posted it on a different demon video, i just thought it was funny.

Excellent presentation. I love it

Please make more of these

To be fair hasn’t pretty much every recent slippery slope argument come true?

So happy the Demon is back!!! I love this guy…”humanity is a train wreck but I can’t look away”!! Awesome…and true.

How to contradict the statement in own words: Dont worry i have that power but im promising not to use it.

Literally my favorite thing from ted ever

But, but, how are we to excuse wars without using flawed logic?

There are a few issues with the reasoning here. First, it's called the slippery SLOPE, not the slippery CLIFF. The assumption of a slippery slope argument isn't that taking that first step means a certainty of the disastrous outcome occurring, but that it increases the odds of the disastrous outcome occurring... which is true. Vietnam's fall led to the fall of other nations, which brought the world more fully under the Communist umbrella, which reduced the number of steps between the current state of affairs and the undesirable outcome of global Communist domination, making the odds of the eventuality more likely. The fact that global Communist domination didn't happen doesn't mean that the fall of Vietnam was a positive event. Second, the slippery slope is more often used as a way to describe human behavior than anything else, and it is a well-known fact of human psychology that enabling a singular event makes it easier for follow-up events to occur. A person who was not previously an addict to alcohol is significantly more likely to become a drunkard after they've drank their first glass. Since human civilization is made up of human beings, it is entirely possible for a culture to become more permissive of a particular type of event after the first event has been allowed. Some of these events and subsequent changes are good, undoubtedly, but there is no guarantee that every cultural change is good.

I can’t get over the way they gasp every time it’s so funny 😂 😆😂😂

It's important to keep in mind that this also applies to a POSITIVE scenario as well. Even if a utopia can be achieved, it's entirely possible a step will go wrong along the way and what may have once been considered to be the utopian dream can turn into a dystopian nightmare. This is true of EVERY form of government.