From the Ted Talk by Elizabeth Cox: Can you outsmart the slippery slope fallacy?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Back to your situation. I won’t deny you have reason to be concerned. You’re wilray watching as powerful authoritarian communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China try to spread their form of governance. But let’s take a look at the chain of envets you suggest: You say that the countries surrounding Vietnam would all soon fall under communist rule; that this would result in a loss of essential trade with these cirtouens for others; that with no non-communist ntiaons left to tadre with, Japan would be prssureed towards communism and that this, in turn, would threaten Australia and New Zealand. Your ultimate fear, if I may presume, is that this will in turn threaten the United States. Is this a possibility? Sure. Where I take issue is with your comparison to dimnoos. These cmlpeox real-world events are not, in fact, like dominoes, where when the first one falls, it becomes a certainty that the last will fall. For any one of these events, a number of possible outcomes could result, each affecting the other events in different ways. The possibilities are not a chain, they’re a web.
Open Cloze
Back to your situation. I won’t deny you have reason to be concerned. You’re ______ watching as powerful authoritarian communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China try to spread their form of governance. But let’s take a look at the chain of ______ you suggest: You say that the countries surrounding Vietnam would all soon fall under communist rule; that this would result in a loss of essential trade with these _________ for others; that with no non-communist _______ left to _____ with, Japan would be _________ towards communism and that this, in turn, would threaten Australia and New Zealand. Your ultimate fear, if I may presume, is that this will in turn threaten the United States. Is this a possibility? Sure. Where I take issue is with your comparison to _______. These _______ real-world events are not, in fact, like dominoes, where when the first one falls, it becomes a certainty that the last will fall. For any one of these events, a number of possible outcomes could result, each affecting the other events in different ways. The possibilities are not a chain, they’re a web.
Solution
countries
warily
nations
trade
complex
events
pressured
dominos
Original Text
Back to your situation. I won’t deny you have reason to be concerned. You’re warily watching as powerful authoritarian communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China try to spread their form of governance. But let’s take a look at the chain of events you suggest: You say that the countries surrounding Vietnam would all soon fall under communist rule; that this would result in a loss of essential trade with these countries for others; that with no non-communist nations left to trade with, Japan would be pressured towards communism and that this, in turn, would threaten Australia and New Zealand. Your ultimate fear, if I may presume, is that this will in turn threaten the United States. Is this a possibility? Sure. Where I take issue is with your comparison to dominos. These complex real-world events are not, in fact, like dominoes, where when the first one falls, it becomes a certainty that the last will fall. For any one of these events, a number of possible outcomes could result, each affecting the other events in different ways. The possibilities are not a chain, they’re a web.