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Hanlon's razor

• AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Could you be a bit more specific?
  • peterwwillis 7y ago
    An eponymous law, probably named after a Robert J. Hanlon, it is a philosophical razor which suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior. Inspired by Occam's razor, the aphorism became known in this form and under this name by the Jargon File, a glossary of computer programmer slang. Later that same year, the Jargon File editors noted lack of knowledge about the term's derivation and the existence of a similar epigram by William James. In 1996, the Jargon File entry on Hanlon's Razor noted the existence of a similar quotation in Robert A. Heinlein's novella Logic of Empire (1941), with speculation that Hanlon's Razor might be a corruption of "Heinlein's Razor". In 2001, Quentin Stafford-Fraser published two blog entries citing e-mails from Joseph E. Bigler explaining that the quotation originally came from Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania, as a submission (credited in print) for a book compilation of various jokes related to Murphy's law published in Arthur Bloch's Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980). Subsequently, in 2002, the Jargon File entry noted the same. Earlier attributions to the idea go back to at least the 18th century. A more concise expression of the idea comes from Jane West, in her novel The Loyalists (1812). A similar quote is also misattributed to Napoleon.
    • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      That is both very thorough and totally useless - so much so that it looks like you were deliberately trying to misunderstand. Could you explain how you think Hanlon's Razor has any relevance to brundolf's post?
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]