1. hanlons razor
A corollary of Finagle's Law, similar to
Occam's Razor, that reads “Never attribute to malice that which can
be adequately explained by stupidity.” Quoted here because it seems
to be a particular favorite of hackers, often showing up in
sig blocks, fortune cookie files and the
login banners of BBS systems and commercial networks. This probably
reflects the hacker's daily experience of environments created by
well-intentioned but short-sighted people. Compare
Sturgeon's Law, Ninety-Ninety Rule.At http://www.statusq.org/20/definition/26
it is claimed that Hanlon's Razor was coined by one Robert J. Hanlon of
Scranton, PA. However, a curiously similar remark (“You have
attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from
stupidity.”) appears in Logic of Empire, a
classic 1941 SF story by Robert A. Heinlein, who calls the error it
indicates the ‘devil theory’ of sociology. Similar epigrams
have been attributed to William James and (on dubious evidence) Napoleon
Bonaparte.
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Definitions of hanlons razor
