zlacker

Slippery slope is a logical “fallacy”, just like ad hominems or mistaking correlation with causation, to name two examples that, for reasons escaping me, are pointed out incessantly on HN while the former rarely is.

>>IfOnly+(OP)
I'm not clear where slippery slope ends and generalizing a question such as "how does GH/MSFT determine who to do business with?" or putting a decision into context begins. I don't see this as being at "the top of a slope" as much as already being on the slope. This was not an isolated request, from TFA: "At Microsoft-owned GitHub, the parent company’s concession only served to reinvigorate internal opposition to a controversial contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement." So this is not a one-off question, the question of ICE is already part of a sequence of demands/concessions.

To use a metaphor, Alice: give me a dollar; Bob: OK here's a dollar; Alice: Thanks but now I need five dollars; Bob: are you just going to ask me for $10 next? Where does this end? Alice: Aha! That's a slippery slope fallacy.

Slippery slope says “if you do A then it will lead to B and eventually Z.” At the moment, we’re not at “A” we’re already at “B,” so I think asking about the rest of the sequence is reasonable.

If management is making concessions to satisfy the workforce's sense of ethics, I think it's reasonable for management to say "OK, after this concession will your sense of ethics be satisfied for the time being? Or is this part of a larger package of demands, and if so what are they?"

To ask a party making concessions to not consider the context at all, the lead up or the implied consequences ("if you did X you'd be a hypocrite to not also do Y") is unreasonable.