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Wow! It’s difficult here to invoke Hanlon: do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
by ak39 7y ago
Wow! It’s difficult here to invoke Hanlon: do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
- seemslegit 7y agoStupidity might be the symptom, but the root cause is almost always malice - in this case systemic corruption and malicious negligence.
- EGreg 7y agoThis. I have started to think of this rejoinder to Hanlon after the Iowa app fiasco. Stupidity may be a great cover for uncoordinated malice leading to widespread negligence. A bit like “chaos monkey” but by those who’d like to rearrange the pieces.
- blowski 7y agoI'd describe it as a vicious cycle of incompetence and misunderstanding risk. They exacerbate each other. It all begins with someone trying to get something done as cheaply as possible in an area about which they are ignorant. Whether they are a "corrupt cowboy" or "cost-efficient genius" mostly depends on whether the project is a success, and that depends on luck.
- seemslegit 7y agoWe don't have the exact details here yet but I'm willing to bet that a rather fat contract was given to someone affiliated with a Likud center member (equivalent to a US party boss) who then sought the cheapest provider while pocketing the difference or maybe handed it to their relative.
- EGreg 7y agoPrivate ownership of contractor businesses means decisions are made by a few at the top :) Relevant comment I wrote on how to solve that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22289943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22289943
- seemslegit 7y agoExcept in this case the decisions were probably made by an underqualified codeling at the bottom who possibly could not even been expected to know better and not take the assignment, that's the immediate stupidity part - the malice is what led to this situation in the first place and saw the result rolled to production.
- seemslegit 7y agoI don't see how that comment is specifically relevant to anything at hand here.
- mnm1 7y agoAbsolutely. Malice is almost always the cause. That's why Hanlon's razor is absurd. It supposes a version of human nature that doesn't exist. Surely humans are generally stupid, but they are also scheming, lying, manipulating, violent, and definitely malicious way more than they are stupid. History shows us this over and over again.
- GaryNumanVevo 7y agoHanlon fails due to second order effects. For instance, I have a "really secure" voting app to make, I hire 3 interns and give them 4 months to do it. Of course they're trying their hardest to make the app, and they'll likely fail. But hey, I'm non the wiser.
- mc3 7y agoHanlon = plausible deniability