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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
by zdkl 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
- lukas099 9y agoDoes't apply, I think. In this case, both hypotheses are attributing the scams to malice.
- sooheon 9y agoIn a narrower sense, you're choosing between interpreting a phenomenon (obvious red flags in scams such as Nigerian emails) as being either calculated malice, or malicious in intent but bumbling in implementation. Hanlon's razor still seems to apply.
- lukas099 9y agoAs another commenter noted, I believe the more appropriate razor is Occam's, since this is not a question of malicious vs. non-malicious, but a question of the complexity of the malicious methods used by the attacker, but we can agree to disagree.
- nicky0 9y agoI would say the more appropriate razor for this one would be Occam's.
- visakanv 9y agoI think a lot about the inverse Hanlon's razor, which is "if you want to do something malicious, make sure you can get away with attributing it to stupidity".
- vikascoder 9y agoOr if your most stupid con act works on a particular set of people, you have struck gold. This is very deliberate on their part. They are not looking for someone possessing any iota of critical thinking skills (the IRS scammers in contrast look for the most easily "scared" demoraphic). They are phishing a different kind of fish.
- eponeponepon 9y agoTo misquote Clarke, "sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from stupidity".
- visakanv 9y agoDamn, that's fantastic. I'm using that from now on.
- BerislavLopac 9y agoI wanted to propose the name "Clarke-Hanlon Theorem" for this, but apparently it's already known as Grey's Law: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HanlonsRazor http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HanlonsRazor Edit: Actually it's not, the Grey's Law is the opposite of what eponeponepon wrote...
- sevenfive 9y agoWhy do people love linking to this page in lieu of an actual argument?
- bluetooth 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clich%C3%A9#Thought-terminating_clich.C3.A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clich%C3%A9#Thought-terminatin...
- paulddraper 9y agoYou're probably familiar with code reuse. This is conversation reuse. A particular point or observation occurs so frequently that it is documented and described in a common place, and then invoked when needed.
- zdkl 9y agoTo expand on paulddraper's argument, I felt reusing that conversation spares you and I from my non native english while making my point clearer than I could by myself. I would however be happy to expand on my view if you have more relevant remarks than a meta argument on the form of my response.