Isabelle's Blog Post #1

Blog Post 1

I came up with this idea while taking notes for my Philosophy class, and writing down the definition for the term, “slippery slope” yet again. I then had a burst of insight. Which is why I have chosen one of the logical fallacies of slippery slope. I found it pretty intriguing that people can come to the conclusion that one small decision will snowball into disaster. However, that is just a logical fallacy, or a faulty conclusion that people come to. The slippery slope rationale has been perfectly constructed in episode one, season three of Black Mirror called “Nosedive”.

Black Mirror is a futuristic, dystopian, psychological enigma, where technology comes into play in each episode. In episode one of season three, a young female character is featured in a tech based world where each individual has ratings, let’s call it a socioeconomic place in that world. The citizens can rate every interaction from one to five stars with other individuals every day. And if something were to go wrong, say you cut someone off in traffic, then your status goes down. I apologize for any spoilers but we can see where that could go wrong very fast.

The character is at a safe and comfortable level of a 4.2, hoping to get a higher rating due to her obsession. Everyday goes just fine until she tries to attend a friend’s wedding as “Maid of Honor”. One thing goes wrong after the next, from missing her taxi to not having enough stars for her flight and she eventually ruins everything for herself. Ending up in prison at a rating of 0. She has clearly demonstrated the slippery slope fallacy by doing small, everyday things like missing a taxi or getting into an argument with a sibling. Small things for her have turned into the worst of the worst(besides death) in just a short amount of time.

This logical fallacy is so noteworthy because it pictures someone going from a good status in society to the worst in prison. Though it is just a television show, it is still getting the content out there for everyone to see. Even if people don’t know the terminology or context, they get it because it’s real human being and not a page out of a textbook.

(You can find all episode of Black Mirror on Netflix, it’s not on YouTube)