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Hanlon's razor
Aug. 27th, 2021 12:45 pmContent 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.
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.
