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headgasketidiot t1_jbai3fo wrote

Reply to comment by Intelligent-Hunt7557 in Rep. Scott Beck: Is this education alliance good for Vermont students? - VTDigger by halfbakedblake

>I’d like to agree with you completely (since I found the piece hard to follow as well) but Hartman’s Law means your launch should have been scrubbed. [reason]

Are you saying that I wrote "sledge hammer" instead of "sledgehammer," and therefore, invoking Hartman's Law, I shouldn't have pointed out that there were grammatical errors in the piece? I think you misunderstand the point of the law, and not without some irony.

I made a substantive critique, which is basically the exact opposite of the nit-picking the law pokes fun at. The few grammatical problems I point out are explicitly labeled as minor points (e.g. "Whatever, I make typos all the time"), but they still contribute to the larger point, in which I argue that this is a bad piece. I talked about typos and grammar, sure, but I actually made it pretty clear that was the least of my concerns.

Hartman's Law doesn't mean that grammar doesn't matter. It's a fun way to poke fun at nit-picking. In making the greater point that one of our elected representatives wrote gobbledygook, it is perfectly valid to point out failures of grammar, among other things.

>Also for someone who seems like they should appreciate nuance the responsibility VTDigger has to their pieces labeled OPINION elude you. Put simply they converted their “Letters to the Editor” feature/tradition to rotating/chosen Opinion pieces some years ago. While the legislative connection is front and center and his employer is unstated, it is certainly public knowledge. Unless he is a paid spokesperson it’s not really relevant tho. Or rather I’m comfortable leaving the relevance as an exercise to the reader. There’s not really any “AHA!” moment here. But I’m pretty sure VTDigger employees would be happy to spell it out more, as the times I have reached them for editing errors they have responded to me quickly.

Sure, I'll remove that critique of VTDigger. I'm sure they're underresourced and overworked and doing their best. I didn't mean it was an AHA moment as in I got VTDigger, but it was an AHA moment for me in that suddenly the piece makes sense -- he feels very strongly about it because it's a threat to his livelihood. He didn't fail to make a coherent argument because he failed to communicate it; he probably just doesn't have one. He is using his position to defend his job, not to make some greater point about policy.

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Intelligent-Hunt7557 t1_jbbwa1l wrote

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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