Comment on How does this pic show that Elon Musk doesnt know SQL?
lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 1 week agoWere those his exact words? When words are ambiguous, are we selecting interpretations that serve best in the contention? Does the context suggest something obvious was left unstated? Yours seems like a forced interpretation.
- He complains about 1 specific database.
- Some rando assumes it’s SQL & retorts he doesn’t know it.
- He literally writes “This retard thinks the government uses SQL.”
Always, sometimes, here? In typical Twitter fashion, it’s brief and leaves room for interpretation.
In context, always or here makes the most sense as in “This dumbass thinks the government always uses SQL.” or “This dumbass thinks the government uses SQL here.” Does it matter some other database is SQL if this one isn’t? No. With your interpretation, he pointlessly claims that it does matter for no better reason than to discredit himself. With narrower interpretations, he doesn’t. In a contention, people don’t typically make pointless claims to discredit themselves. Therefore, narrower interpretations make more sense. Use context.
All I did here was apply textbook guidelines for analyzing arguments & strawman fallacies as explained in The Power of Logic. I welcome everyone to do the same.
The fact is there’s very little information here. We don’t know which database he’s referring to exactly. We don’t know its technology. Some of us have worked enough with local government & legacy enterprise systems to know that following any sort of common industry standards is an unsafe assumption. No one here has introduced concrete information on any of that to draw clear conclusions, though there’s an awful lot of conjecture & overreading.
He seemed to use the word de-duplicated incorrectly. However, he also explained exactly what he meant by that, so the word hardly matters. Is there a good chance he’s wrong that multiple records with the same SSN indicate fraud? Without a clear explanation of the data architecture, I think so.
I despise idiocy. Therefore, I despise what Musk is doing to the government. Therefore, I despise it when everyone else does it.
Seeing this post keep popping up in the lemmy feed is annoying when it’s clear from context that there’s nothing there but weak reasoning.
We don’t have to become idiots to denounce idiocy.
bitchkat@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That is all you need. He’s not saying “This retard thinks the SSA uses SQL”. He is saying “the government” which means all of it. Saying someone is a retard because they think the government uses SQL means Elon doesn’t think they do because we all know he doesn’t consider himself a retard.
You are looking for ambiguity where there is none.
lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 6 days ago
Nah, you’re ignoring context. Context matters. I’ll show.
Can SSA not be called “the government”?
Which government? The Brazilian government? Your state government? Your local government? No? How do you know? That’s right: context.
By why stop there? There’s more context: a Social Security database was specifically mentioned.
Does “the government” always mean all of it? When a federal agent knocks someone’s door & someone gripes “The goddamn government is after me!” do they literally mean the entire government? I know from context I or anyone else can informally refer to any part of the government at any level as “the government”. I think you know this.
Likewise, when people refer to the ocean or the sky or the people, they don’t necessarily mean all of it or all of them.
Another way to check meaning is to test whether a proposition still makes sense when something obvious unstated is explicitly written out.
Still make sense? Yes. Could that be understood from context without explicitly writing it out? Yes.
To refrain: