4 ms·

I repeated "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" blindly for years without really thinking about it much. I thought it was

I repeated "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" blindly for years without really thinking about it much. I thought it was clever. But now I've come to realize I don't agree with it at all and I actually think it does a lot of harm. Bad people will do bad things and just make you think they are stupid instead of actively perpetrating evil acts. I think there is a lot of real harm done in this world that is done on purpose, i.e., actions that are meant to hurt people, and serve no other purpose - and these actions are dismissed by the 'enlightened' as mere stupidity, not worthy of serious discussion. Meanwhile, evildoers entrench and continue doing evil, under the guise of stupidity. I have personally dismissed many things as merely 'stupid' when it has later turned out to be an actual evil plot with the intent to harm. This has happened a lot recently, actually. I no longer support Hanlon's razor as anything useful and now often regard it as a red flag. I don't have a comment on this current article as it pertains to hanlon's razor, however. I'll sit this one out.

labster 5y ago
I’d still say more harm is done by carelessness and people intending to do good than by people actually intending harm. It’s not like the choice is binary between stupidity and malice. The situation here is likely carelessness even more than stupidity, because running an electric grid is pretty complex. This was just a little... well, big detail they overlooked.
JamesBarney 5y ago
Mind giving some examples where it appears at first to be due to stupidity or carelessness but is in fact malice?
- cryptoz 5y ago
  Well, Exxon knew about CO2 emissions from its products (and that they were causing global catastrophic climate change) but pretended they didn't know anything - they played dumb for decades while they cooked the world. Worse, while playing dumb about it, they tried to convince everyone in the world to join them in being 'stupid'. (funding climate change denial efforts, for example) Meanwhile, they produced as much atmospheric pollution as possible, maliciously, knowing the damage they were doing but pretending it was all a big misunderstanding. That's just one example. There are thousands, though. We could do one more I guess. Many Republicans in Congress are actively playing dumb about the insurrection, for another example. They say that it was just like a tour, they say that the real issue is "BLM destroying our cities" while ignoring that white supremacists stormed the capital and tried to kill our lawmakers and VP. People will call the rioters stupid and tell us they didn't know what they were doing. Sure. They knew what they were doing. They were trying to overthrow US democracy and murder our lawmakers. That is malice. They pretend it is stupidity and a looooooot of people go along with it. I honestly have a lot more. But here are two high-profile cases of obvious malice and wrongdoing while hiding under the guise of stupidity.
  - elp 5y ago
    If it was a real insurrection it would have been significantly better armed, more violent and more effective. A far more logical explanation is that an unexpectedly large group of demonstrators showed up and when faced with a tiny police presence ended up overrunning them. After that they just took advantage with no thought -- Hey lets proudly get on camera committing a crime. What could go wrong.
    - krapp 5y ago
      Their own social media communications and statements make it clear they intended a real insurrection. Zip-tie guy wasn't there to post on the 'gram.
      - MikeUt 5y ago
        But according to the new filing [by the DOJ], Munchel and his mother took the handcuffs from within the Capitol building — apparently to ensure the Capitol Police couldn't use them on the insurrectionists — rather than bring them in when they initially breached the building. https://www.insider.com/zip-tie-guy-capitol-riot-plastic-handcuffs-police-prosecutors-2021-1 https://www.insider.com/zip-tie-guy-capitol-riot-plastic-han...
        krapp 5y ago
        OK, fair enough. That doesn't speak to motive or intent. From the filing[0]: MUNCHEL and Eisenhart made no secret of their intentions in traveling to Washington: they told a reporter for The Sunday Times that they made the trip because they “wanted to show that we’re willing to rise up, band together[,] and fight if necessary. Same as our forefathers, who established this country in 1776.” Notably, MUNCHEL told the Times reporter that he had left his guns in Tennessee because of the “strict” guns laws in Washington—the implication being that MUNCHEL would have been armed with a firearm had Washington’s gun laws not been in place. And, as described below, there is evidence that MUNCHEL and Eisenhart were armed with firearms when they came to Washington for the rally. [0]https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.85025/gov.uscourts.tnmd.85025.8.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.85... So they were not simply protestors operating on the spur of the moment without a plan. And that still leaves all of the planning done on social media, and the communications captured by the government. To claim that no one at the Capitol that day went there with the intent to disrupt the certification of the election of Joe Biden would be incorrect.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
They can be hard to tell apart. Evil people often operate through stupid people because it's relatively easy to lie to, confuse, and manipulate stupid people. And/or intelligent people with stupid beliefs. (Which applies to virtually everyone.) From the outside, the UI of evil often looks like stupidity.
- etripe 5y ago
  Thanks for planting the image in my head of an evil empire behind a Geocities site. Just a small thing to add: you can be highly intelligent and still gullible or conformist. A lot of the evils in the world are also caused by those: naivité and peer pressure.
specialist 5y ago
Full agreement. I was an election integrity activist, advocating voter privacy and process transparency. Many bad actors, much bad faith. I learned to use messaging like "quality assurance" and "preventing errors" in public. Any mention of fraud stops all conversation, triggering pearl clutching and feinting spells (think flopping in professional soccer). The accusations then totally dominate public discourse, obliterating reform efforts. There's probably some cliche or rule stating reform and justice are mutually exclusive. Certainly abandoning notions of justice lessens the blowback, allowing the more clever perpetrators simply take their profits and wander off to their next grift.
Izkata 5y ago
> Bad people will do bad things and just make you think they are stupid instead of actively perpetrating evil acts. As shown when the phrase "it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission" is used to excuse the act.

labster 5y ago

I’d still say more harm is done by carelessness and people intending to do good than by people actually intending harm. It’s not like the choice is binary between stupidity and malice. The situation here is likely carelessness even more than stupidity, because running an electric grid is pretty complex. This was just a little... well, big detail they overlooked.

JamesBarney 5y ago

Mind giving some examples where it appears at first to be due to stupidity or carelessness but is in fact malice?

cryptoz 5y ago
Well, Exxon knew about CO2 emissions from its products (and that they were causing global catastrophic climate change) but pretended they didn't know anything - they played dumb for decades while they cooked the world. Worse, while playing dumb about it, they tried to convince everyone in the world to join them in being 'stupid'. (funding climate change denial efforts, for example) Meanwhile, they produced as much atmospheric pollution as possible, maliciously, knowing the damage they were doing but pretending it was all a big misunderstanding. That's just one example. There are thousands, though. We could do one more I guess. Many Republicans in Congress are actively playing dumb about the insurrection, for another example. They say that it was just like a tour, they say that the real issue is "BLM destroying our cities" while ignoring that white supremacists stormed the capital and tried to kill our lawmakers and VP. People will call the rioters stupid and tell us they didn't know what they were doing. Sure. They knew what they were doing. They were trying to overthrow US democracy and murder our lawmakers. That is malice. They pretend it is stupidity and a looooooot of people go along with it. I honestly have a lot more. But here are two high-profile cases of obvious malice and wrongdoing while hiding under the guise of stupidity.
- elp 5y ago
  If it was a real insurrection it would have been significantly better armed, more violent and more effective. A far more logical explanation is that an unexpectedly large group of demonstrators showed up and when faced with a tiny police presence ended up overrunning them. After that they just took advantage with no thought -- Hey lets proudly get on camera committing a crime. What could go wrong.
  - krapp 5y ago
    Their own social media communications and statements make it clear they intended a real insurrection. Zip-tie guy wasn't there to post on the 'gram.
    - MikeUt 5y ago
      But according to the new filing [by the DOJ], Munchel and his mother took the handcuffs from within the Capitol building — apparently to ensure the Capitol Police couldn't use them on the insurrectionists — rather than bring them in when they initially breached the building. https://www.insider.com/zip-tie-guy-capitol-riot-plastic-handcuffs-police-prosecutors-2021-1 https://www.insider.com/zip-tie-guy-capitol-riot-plastic-han...
      - krapp 5y ago
        OK, fair enough. That doesn't speak to motive or intent. From the filing[0]: MUNCHEL and Eisenhart made no secret of their intentions in traveling to Washington: they told a reporter for The Sunday Times that they made the trip because they “wanted to show that we’re willing to rise up, band together[,] and fight if necessary. Same as our forefathers, who established this country in 1776.” Notably, MUNCHEL told the Times reporter that he had left his guns in Tennessee because of the “strict” guns laws in Washington—the implication being that MUNCHEL would have been armed with a firearm had Washington’s gun laws not been in place. And, as described below, there is evidence that MUNCHEL and Eisenhart were armed with firearms when they came to Washington for the rally. [0]https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.85025/gov.uscourts.tnmd.85025.8.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.85... So they were not simply protestors operating on the spur of the moment without a plan. And that still leaves all of the planning done on social media, and the communications captured by the government. To claim that no one at the Capitol that day went there with the intent to disrupt the certification of the election of Joe Biden would be incorrect.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago

They can be hard to tell apart. Evil people often operate through stupid people because it's relatively easy to lie to, confuse, and manipulate stupid people. And/or intelligent people with stupid beliefs. (Which applies to virtually everyone.) From the outside, the UI of evil often looks like stupidity.

etripe 5y ago
Thanks for planting the image in my head of an evil empire behind a Geocities site. Just a small thing to add: you can be highly intelligent and still gullible or conformist. A lot of the evils in the world are also caused by those: naivité and peer pressure.

specialist 5y ago

Full agreement. I was an election integrity activist, advocating voter privacy and process transparency. Many bad actors, much bad faith. I learned to use messaging like "quality assurance" and "preventing errors" in public. Any mention of fraud stops all conversation, triggering pearl clutching and feinting spells (think flopping in professional soccer). The accusations then totally dominate public discourse, obliterating reform efforts. There's probably some cliche or rule stating reform and justice are mutually exclusive. Certainly abandoning notions of justice lessens the blowback, allowing the more clever perpetrators simply take their profits and wander off to their next grift.

Izkata 5y ago

> Bad people will do bad things and just make you think they are stupid instead of actively perpetrating evil acts. As shown when the phrase "it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission" is used to excuse the act.