Hanlon's razor

[sonia]

Content note: ableist language

Hanlon's razor came up in a comment thread: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I had heard of Occam's razor, but not Hanlon's. The meaning, though, was very familiar.

The wikipedia entry attributes the phrase to Robert J. Hanlon for a Murphy's Law joke book published in 1980, and also mentions Heinlein using a similar phrase in his books.

I remember my father using that exact phrase, I believe earlier than 1980. He worked for a military lab in the 70's, and my guess is that the phrase was in common circulation in the military to go along with snafu (situation normal, all fucked up) and fubar (fucked up beyond all recognition).

By the way, when I learned C programming in the late '80s, it was common to use example variables foo and bar (sometimes followed by baz), which were a variation on fubar. Here's more history of that from wikipedia.

Sadly there seems to be a whole lot of malice in the world these days. Aside from the ableist language, I don't feel like the phrase is true on a global scale. On a personal scale, yes, it's preferable to first assume someone made a mistake rather than actively trying to cause harm.

Comments

[silveradept]

I suspect that Hanlon's Razor in our time needs to also be complemented with Grey's Law: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. Mistakes made by individuals may be incompetence or ignorance, but enough of it, or a strong enough degree of it, and it's functionally malice all the same.

[sonia]

Oh, that's painfully good.

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, I generally prefer Grey's Law (not least in specifying 'incompetence'). Hanlon's Razor is about motives and Grey's Law about results.

[sonia]

I like that clear distinction! And yes, incompetence is a much better and more accurate word.

I care about motives as well as results, but then again I'm still working on unlearning the bs I absorbed from my father.

[suncat]

Thank you both. I had heard of Hanlon's Razor, but not the named attribution. I hadn't heard Grey's Law, but am adding it to the repertoire.

I was learning Lisp programming in the 1980s, and foo and bar were common usage. I had no idea they were borrowings until my father (WWII vet) and boyfriend (history buff) clued me in. Just as when he gave me the definition of SNAFU when I was a kid, without swearing in front of his daughter, "Situation Normal, All Fouled Up", this was "Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition". I think it works.

[sonia]

I started by typing "effed up" but it just didn't sound right for soldiers' language. "Fouled Up" is more plausible, thanks.