Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity
By
Vynce
on May 12, 2008
Hanlon's razor (unless it's Heinlein's)
Agreed
19
2
90.5% 9.5%
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Discussion (14)
Having glanced at the WP article, I prefer "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but keep your eyes open." There's certainly a lot of malice in the world. It may be somewhat dwarfed by stupidity, but it's still there.
yeah, "assume" Is key here.
Agree with JR, "but keep your eyes open". "Never" does not suggest sufficient cautiousness to me. Therefore, disagree.
to me "keep your eyes open" reinforces (or qualifies) the "adequately" already in the original Razor.
"Adequately" is the key word. See also this user.
D'A
That's nice.
this is not a claim.
With this claim Vynce admits that language is a beautiful game and nothing else. This contradicts some of his former claims, and that is o.k..
it is an imperative, not a claim.
It is an imperative claim, oliebol.
DeWe:
When reading an imperoclaim, I think there is an understood "we should" or "one should" in front of the claim, so this claim becomes:
"one should never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
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There is a silence in any a voice.That's still an imperative. The full correct expansion is 'I believe one should ...'.
potato potato.
The point is that the statement (non-imperative) is implicit in the imperoclaim.
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The expression "potato potato" does not work on the internet.Try again, DeWe. "One should" is not an imperative.