That would be a thoughtless and rather reckless use of this tool
As you say, using stop losses in a kinda knee-jerk reaction (like automatically setting 1% stop loss) will only lead to compounding of the total loss until there is nothing left to lose. To cut losses short makes only sense when the price action is not what you expected it to be. Then you shouldn't think twice indeed
However, if you expect the price to fall further, you can even add to your position instead of closing it (say, employ some dollar-cost averaging strategy). In other words, your stop losses must be consistent with your long-term trading strategy (let's call it your trading paradigm), and thus planned well ahead