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Hanlon's Razor (‘Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect.’) is better ... just assume people are not trying to screw you rig

Hanlon's Razor (‘Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect.’) is better ... just assume people are not trying to screw you right away. The lack assumed negative intent is a positive in my book https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/04/mental-model-hanlons-razor/ https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/04/mental-model-hanlon...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
whipoodle 9y ago
That does seem better, because I don't think I would say people generally have positive intent. It's more like benign or neutral intent.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Swizec 9y ago
  The way I like to put it is: People aren't for you or against you, they're for themselves. Most of the time people don't intentionally slight you, they just don't care enough to actively avoid it.
  - 77pt77 9y ago
    > People aren't for you or against you, they're for themselves. Where does bullying fall in your classification?
    - jpatokal 9y ago
      One popular theory of bullying states that bullies are uncertain of their own position in the social hierarchy, so they attempt to bolster it by pushing down on those weaker than them. http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
      - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        Which means that to be "for themselves" they feel the need to be "against others" as they view things as zero sum. I guess similar applies to other zero sum situations (or situations that people view as zero sum). The car salesman isn't trying to screw you, he's just trying to make more money for himself, by screwing you.
- bobbles 9y ago
  I think its safe to assume in general people are just trying to do the best they can, whether they have the tools and support they need to get there is another matter
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    I do not agree. Many people just do enough to get by or say get promoted. I would hazard saying most. It is a rare person that really wants to do best and they are typically not rewarded for it. Especially when they don't get rewarded.
fizixer 9y ago
Came here to say this. This kind of work irks me. No offense to the author, this is a widespread trend, not a single example. You write a whole blog-post on a topic and not mention Hanlon's razor. It is inexcusable that you didn't know about it. It was your job to do "literature survey" or some google search, or an intellectual discussion with a handful of people, (ideally all three of them, and more) before you blurt out a whole essay on a topic. And then in the essay you create an image of yourself originally coming up with such a brilliant idea. This is just a piece of writing (and maybe I am a bit harsh but I'm just trying to point to a trend). We're on HN. This is way worse when it comes to coding/github projects: You create some kind of code, put it on github, create a blog-post in some shiny flat/material design, grey font, maybe medium or nautil.us posting. And put that posting on tech forums, HN, linkedin, reddit, whatever. And you fail to mention other projects preceding you on this same exact topic, much less discuss the pros and cons of your approach vs previous approach(es). Who knows you might've ended up finding out your own code was a complete reinventing of the wheel and completely redundant (maybe you're too afraid to find that out). (As an example, look at my recent comment about 'building your own linux' vs LFS [1]). Creating something new and original is hard work. Part of that hard work is searching for existing efforts, related work, doing a literature survey, and whether or not they were successful, and how they compare/contrast with what you did or are going to do, and so on. Short of that, you're just contributing to the noise, the bloat, and the information overload of your content consumers. What's worse. Not putting in the full effort works for these people too. More often than not, such people are looking for a quick karma-whoring to meet their immediate objective. A github coder is looking to put something quick on their resume, to land a job interview. It's the job of the interviewer or potential employer to hold such people accountable, but I doubt they do. I don't know. This irks me to no extent. I'm big on minimalism. I spend a lot of my efforts making sure I don't say something that's already said ('say' = a piece or writing, or a piece of code). I don't like to contribute to information bloat. Maybe it's a self-defeating habit (i.e., if you don't say anything most of time, people think you have no talent, you're a nobody). edit: It also reminds of NIH (not-invented-here) syndrome, something Google is known for. To be clear, it's worse than when it's done by noobs (e.g., for quick karma-whoring to land a job interview, at least they're desperate). When you're in a position of "status", you definitely can do better. It also reminds of the website LessWrong [2]. Those self-entitled wannabes have created a whole universe of philosophical/logical terminology for themselves without consulting the outside world and trying to find out whether "their ideas" originated elsewhere or not. edit 2: In case anyone wondering, yes I am advocating the opposite of 'publish or perish'. And 'publish or perish' is part of the reason we have so much information bloat (on the internet, in the libraries, everywhere). And that's part of the reason why I say my approach is self-defeating. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15030582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15030582 [2] http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/
matt4077 9y ago
Hanlon is in the same-but-different territory, because it's possible (or even somewhat assumed) that Hanlon's incompetence comes with good intentions (since you've rejected malice). Focussing on the good intentions instead of the incompetence may be beneficial for your own mental health.
- gasof 9y ago
  It sure is interesting whether it's just good for your mental health or also good for your longevity and lifetime influence.
bitL 9y ago
Unless you are trained by high-performing sociopaths (e.g. by having them in your own family) and then seeing half-baked "mastery" of those techniques in almost everyone you meet, as they are subconsciously aping those "masters" that became successful. Once you start seeing this, it can't be unseen; good luck not feeling disgusted all day long.
- dTal 9y ago
  Which techniques?
  - beobab 9y ago
    bitL suggested that you are better off not knowing. Are you sure you want to go down the avenue bitL explicitly suggests will disgust you all day long?
  - doc_gunthrop 9y ago
    [Gaslighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting) is perhaps one such example.
- fapjacks 9y ago
  There is one thing that people are binary about: Their feelings for sociopaths. You can immediately tell who has had to spend time around an honest-to-goodness sociopath and who hasn't. I always say that sociopaths are insects in human skin. Once you've had a brush with one of these "people", it forever alters your perception of the world and the people that inhabit it.
  - CuriouslyC 9y ago
    I can tell you from personal experience that having faulty empathy wiring really sucks, and people who suffer from this problem are deserving of sympathy, even if it's at arms-length. It shouldn't be a surprise that going through life feeling cold and isolated is going to result in someone who does shitty things.
novaleaf 9y ago
unless you are doing business in China, or with others with similar geo-political leanings. Oh wait, then how will you know? This is why in high stakes environments this "assume positive intent" falls apart. Only where the costs don't really matter (and for a lot of wealthy americans, a couple hundred bucks lost on a bad contractor is low stakes) can you really afford to be so lax.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

whipoodle 9y ago

That does seem better, because I don't think I would say people generally have positive intent. It's more like benign or neutral intent.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Swizec 9y ago
The way I like to put it is: People aren't for you or against you, they're for themselves. Most of the time people don't intentionally slight you, they just don't care enough to actively avoid it.
- 77pt77 9y ago
  > People aren't for you or against you, they're for themselves. Where does bullying fall in your classification?
  - jpatokal 9y ago
    One popular theory of bullying states that bullies are uncertain of their own position in the social hierarchy, so they attempt to bolster it by pushing down on those weaker than them. http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      Which means that to be "for themselves" they feel the need to be "against others" as they view things as zero sum. I guess similar applies to other zero sum situations (or situations that people view as zero sum). The car salesman isn't trying to screw you, he's just trying to make more money for himself, by screwing you.
bobbles 9y ago
I think its safe to assume in general people are just trying to do the best they can, whether they have the tools and support they need to get there is another matter
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  I do not agree. Many people just do enough to get by or say get promoted. I would hazard saying most. It is a rare person that really wants to do best and they are typically not rewarded for it. Especially when they don't get rewarded.

fizixer 9y ago

Came here to say this. This kind of work irks me. No offense to the author, this is a widespread trend, not a single example. You write a whole blog-post on a topic and not mention Hanlon's razor. It is inexcusable that you didn't know about it. It was your job to do "literature survey" or some google search, or an intellectual discussion with a handful of people, (ideally all three of them, and more) before you blurt out a whole essay on a topic. And then in the essay you create an image of yourself originally coming up with such a brilliant idea. This is just a piece of writing (and maybe I am a bit harsh but I'm just trying to point to a trend). We're on HN. This is way worse when it comes to coding/github projects: You create some kind of code, put it on github, create a blog-post in some shiny flat/material design, grey font, maybe medium or nautil.us posting. And put that posting on tech forums, HN, linkedin, reddit, whatever. And you fail to mention other projects preceding you on this same exact topic, much less discuss the pros and cons of your approach vs previous approach(es). Who knows you might've ended up finding out your own code was a complete reinventing of the wheel and completely redundant (maybe you're too afraid to find that out). (As an example, look at my recent comment about 'building your own linux' vs LFS [1]). Creating something new and original is hard work. Part of that hard work is searching for existing efforts, related work, doing a literature survey, and whether or not they were successful, and how they compare/contrast with what you did or are going to do, and so on. Short of that, you're just contributing to the noise, the bloat, and the information overload of your content consumers. What's worse. Not putting in the full effort works for these people too. More often than not, such people are looking for a quick karma-whoring to meet their immediate objective. A github coder is looking to put something quick on their resume, to land a job interview. It's the job of the interviewer or potential employer to hold such people accountable, but I doubt they do. I don't know. This irks me to no extent. I'm big on minimalism. I spend a lot of my efforts making sure I don't say something that's already said ('say' = a piece or writing, or a piece of code). I don't like to contribute to information bloat. Maybe it's a self-defeating habit (i.e., if you don't say anything most of time, people think you have no talent, you're a nobody). edit: It also reminds of NIH (not-invented-here) syndrome, something Google is known for. To be clear, it's worse than when it's done by noobs (e.g., for quick karma-whoring to land a job interview, at least they're desperate). When you're in a position of "status", you definitely can do better. It also reminds of the website LessWrong [2]. Those self-entitled wannabes have created a whole universe of philosophical/logical terminology for themselves without consulting the outside world and trying to find out whether "their ideas" originated elsewhere or not. edit 2: In case anyone wondering, yes I am advocating the opposite of 'publish or perish'. And 'publish or perish' is part of the reason we have so much information bloat (on the internet, in the libraries, everywhere). And that's part of the reason why I say my approach is self-defeating. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15030582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15030582 [2] http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/

matt4077 9y ago

Hanlon is in the same-but-different territory, because it's possible (or even somewhat assumed) that Hanlon's incompetence comes with good intentions (since you've rejected malice). Focussing on the good intentions instead of the incompetence may be beneficial for your own mental health.

gasof 9y ago
It sure is interesting whether it's just good for your mental health or also good for your longevity and lifetime influence.

bitL 9y ago

Unless you are trained by high-performing sociopaths (e.g. by having them in your own family) and then seeing half-baked "mastery" of those techniques in almost everyone you meet, as they are subconsciously aping those "masters" that became successful. Once you start seeing this, it can't be unseen; good luck not feeling disgusted all day long.

dTal 9y ago
Which techniques?
- beobab 9y ago
  bitL suggested that you are better off not knowing. Are you sure you want to go down the avenue bitL explicitly suggests will disgust you all day long?
- doc_gunthrop 9y ago
  [Gaslighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting) is perhaps one such example.
fapjacks 9y ago
There is one thing that people are binary about: Their feelings for sociopaths. You can immediately tell who has had to spend time around an honest-to-goodness sociopath and who hasn't. I always say that sociopaths are insects in human skin. Once you've had a brush with one of these "people", it forever alters your perception of the world and the people that inhabit it.
- CuriouslyC 9y ago
  I can tell you from personal experience that having faulty empathy wiring really sucks, and people who suffer from this problem are deserving of sympathy, even if it's at arms-length. It shouldn't be a surprise that going through life feeling cold and isolated is going to result in someone who does shitty things.

novaleaf 9y ago

unless you are doing business in China, or with others with similar geo-political leanings. Oh wait, then how will you know? This is why in high stakes environments this "assume positive intent" falls apart. Only where the costs don't really matter (and for a lot of wealthy americans, a couple hundred bucks lost on a bad contractor is low stakes) can you really afford to be so lax.