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Intelligent-Hunt7557 t1_jbbwa1l wrote

Reply to comment by headgasketidiot in Rep. Scott Beck: Is this education alliance good for Vermont students? - VTDigger by halfbakedblake

I agree that your critique concerned more than a typo (which might have been VTDigger’s anyway) but Hartman’s Law does not dictate typos must be the only crit, no. The descent into (mere?) pedantry can be pleasant given the right circumstances, but in this case the main proviso of ‘don’t point out typos in others’ words unless yours are proofed’ holds.

While it is true that people are generally motivated to protect their employers, it doesn’t actually mean they will or won’t make cogent arguments, so that’s why I’m saying it’s not that relevant. Is motivated self-interest inherently unethical? Realistically, you’d be hard-pressed to find an adult in St. J who is not affected by SJA. And that’s anecdotal I suppose, I don’t have enough data to sway any naysayers.

In general without knowing any situation deeply can’t you always just say “well that’s what you would say, given…”? causation =/= correlation.

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headgasketidiot t1_jbccme3 wrote

My comment isn't just about "more than a typo." It's about an elected representative who cannot write an essay. That isn't a descent into pedantry. It's a serious criticism of someone who is supposed to write laws for a living. The only pedantry here is invoking a silly adage to point out that I typed "sledge hammer" instead of "sledgehammer," as if somehow a random comment on reddit should be judged on the same standards as the communications of an elected official, or as if that somehow makes my point unclear or deficient. The dude wrote like 800 words of borderline nonsense; that should concern his constituents. No one but you will ever care that I put a space in the word sledgehammer in a reddit comment.

And yeah, obviously I don't know for sure. This isn't a paper I'm submitting to peer review on the psychology of Rep. Scott Beck. It's a reddit comment about Beck's incoherent opinion piece. I know that an elected official made an incoherent argument against something that might negatively affect his own employment. From there, I infer that he doesn't actually have a good argument. That's a perfectly reasonable jump.

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Intelligent-Hunt7557 t1_jbd5ikh wrote

We’re talking past each other a bit- I’m saying the pleasant pedantry is ours over whether Hartman’s Law applies here. There’s no point in being pedantic (except humorously) about it or Poe’s Law, Godwin’s Law, or any of the other “Laws” which are really observations at best. It’s indeed a bad opinion piece if we’re arguing about the possible qualified intros and not the content. And it was always clear that your complaint was not limited to a typo, but like you I couldn’t resist the zinger.

Getting back to the author’s credentials/ possible motivations Beck is listed on the SJA website as a Social Studies teacher and local business owner so as an alum I’d prefer to think that his incoherency owes to

  1. not being an alum, unlike a great percent of the faculty
  2. not being in the English Department
  3. possibly since he got his M. Ed. from The Citadel?! TIL

All I meant was we could leave the Academy out of this. That he has no discernable point is clear but the Academy is not responsible for that.

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