4 ms·
It's a fair point, but "never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity".
by adamiscool8 10y ago
It's a fair point, but "never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity".
- tomku 10y agoThat saying really does not work when the you're talking about one party potentially being malicious and a completely different party being stupid. It's also worth pointing out that malice and stupidity aren't necessarily an either-or.
- micaksica 10y agoHanlon's Razor definitely does not apply when you are talking about intelligence, information warfare, and diplomacy. To believe that aphorism holds true as a "razor" in high-stakes political games puts one firmly in the stupid camp.
- jwtadvice 10y agoThis 100%. However most people who hold this view seem to apply it only for adversaries of their nation, and not the intelligence activities of their own nation. For example the selective leaks known as the Panama Papers was criticized for being screened before being leaked of implicating US officials - and for being selectively published to implicate other world leaders. Ask an American about this an Hanlon's Razor suddenly seems relevant. Really, whether to take the mental effort to understand the realpolitik implications, incentives and to pry into leaks and their sources to understand what's true, what's false, what's mischaracterized and what's missing - that decision to be careful and skeptical is immediately under the bias that nationalistic individuals hold dear: cognitive dissonance, etc.