2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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Hanlon's Razor
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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prov. A corollary of Finagle's Law , similar to Occam's Razor, that reads
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Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by
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stupidity. Quoted here because it seems to be a particular favorite of
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hackers, often showing up in sig block s, fortune cookie files and the login
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banners of BBS systems and commercial networks. This probably reflects the
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hacker's daily experience of environments created by well-intentioned but
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short-sighted people. Compare Sturgeon's Law , Ninety-Ninety Rule. At
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http://www.statusq.org/2001/11/26.html it is claimed that Hanlon's Razor was
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coined by one Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, PA. However, a curiously similar
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remark ( You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from
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stupidity. ) appears in Logic of Empire , a classic 1941 SF story by Robert
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A. Heinlein, who calls the error it indicates the devil theory of sociology.
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Similar epigrams have been attributed to William James and (on dubious
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evidence) Napoleon Bonaparte.
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