Misinformation / Disinformation

Not every slippery slope is a fallacy, which is what makes it interesting.

Some chains of consequence are well documented. Others are asserted: A leads to B leads to C leads to catastrophe, with no evidence for any individual link.

The fallacious version has a signature — the steps accelerate. Early links are plausible and small, later links are enormous, and the transition happens without argument. By the time you reach the end you are several unsupported inferences from anything anyone demonstrated.

The useful question is not "is this a slippery slope?" but "which specific link is doing the work, and what supports it?" Usually one link is load-bearing and unsupported, and the rest is decoration.

I find this one genuinely difficult to judge in policy discussions, where second-order effects are real and often the whole point. Where do you draw the line between prudent extrapolation and unsupported chain?