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This claim violates Hanlon’s Razor “Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” Over-hiring, over-salarying and not an

This claim violates Hanlon’s Razor “Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” Over-hiring, over-salarying and not anticipating the consequences of a pandemic and post-pandemic on business might qualify as “incompetence” The thing that bothers me is this tone I'm seeing online and in particular in this discussion where people presume that a salary is owed no matter what, and that withdrawing that salary (as in a firing) is somehow always morally corrupt. I'm Gen X, so when I say "we weren't raised with the expectation that the world owed us anything", I mean it. EDIT: A better discussion of Hanlon's over here: https://fs.blog/mental-model-hanlons-razor/ https://fs.blog/mental-model-hanlons-razor/ "An instance of Hanlon’s razor being proven wrong is the mafia. Prior to the 1960s, the existence of the mafia was considered to be a conspiracy theory. Only when a member contacted law enforcement, did police realize that the malice being perpetrated was carefully orchestrated." (I was not aware of this!)

jacknews 4y ago
But they all find themselves in the same predicament all at the same time, across diverse markets and services? As far as I can tell there's is no actual downturn in the market, this is all anticipation. And so it's a 'movement' even if it's not a diffuse, or actual conspiracy.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  > As far as I can tell there's is no actual downturn in the market You are dramatically incorrect. Unit sales, free spending, rates and inflation. + https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stocks-poised-hit-lows-survey-010021690.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stocks-poised-hit-lows-survey... + https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/apple-sales-expected-to-fall-in-bad-week-for-big-tech-jfcvh7gbg https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/apple-sales-expected-to-f... + https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/25/inflation-is-cooling-but-high-prices-will-stick-around.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/25/inflation-is-cooling-but-hig...
  - jacknews 4y ago
    https://edition.cnn.com/business/live-news/stock-market-news-today-jobs-2323/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/business/live-news/stock-market-news... It seems like there's a tussle between the finance 'economy' and the actual economy.
  - jacknews 4y ago
    expected ... poised ... weak outlook ... This is again the finance/investment tail waging the economic dog.
gilbert_vanova 4y ago
I have a recent counter razor: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity what is better explained by self-interest" Many of these orgs laying off thousands have fallen into the depths of a moral maze -- where rational thinking is just impossible and all that's left is self-preservation.
- widowlark 4y ago
  Vanova's Razor
  - asciii 4y ago
    -sigh- I google Vanova's razor and then realized you were quoting OP. :)
    - widowlark 4y ago
      It worked!
  - kerkeslager 4y ago
    Vanova's Fallacy
- jack_riminton 4y ago
  Exactly, the incentives will explain the behaviour, they always do. I suspect managers being judged on their number of direct reports explains some of the over-hiring.
  - kerkeslager 4y ago
    > Exactly, the incentives will explain the behaviour, they always do. Who cares? "I was following incentives" is no different from "I was following orders." It doesn't become suddenly okay to do harm just because there's an incentive to do harm. Hacker News and startup culture in general are toxic because of people blaming market conditions instead of taking responsibility for their own actions. If it's really about incentives, would you support docking executive pay proportional to layoffs, to incentivize against future over-hiring? Or do incentives only apply when they excuse harming workers?
imwillofficial 4y ago
I despise Hanlons razor. It flies against everything we know about people in power. Probably made popular by powerful
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  It was designed by a Reptillian scientist who was sponsored by the crab people from Mars. Though it may seem like a plot against humanity, it's actually just a market ploy to cause a run on aluminum foil head pieces, engineered by Big Haberdashery. And we all know what Big Haberdashery likes to engineer.
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    My favorite comment this week
- pessimizer 4y ago
  No, the powerful just leave out the "adequately" part, and it becomes "Unless you have access to physical evidence that something was intentional, every mistake in our favor was inadvertent."
- pmarreck 4y ago
  There's a better, less-oversimplified discussion of Hanlon's Razor over here: https://fs.blog/mental-model-hanlons-razor/ https://fs.blog/mental-model-hanlons-razor/ "An instance of Hanlon’s razor being proven wrong is the mafia. Prior to the 1960s, the existence of the mafia was considered to be a conspiracy theory. Only when a member contacted law enforcement, did police realize that the malice being perpetrated was carefully orchestrated." (I was not aware of this!)
dougSF70 4y ago
I agree, firms thought the era of cheap money (10+ years) combined with ramped up demand caused by pandemic would last for a good while longer. They forgot about Galton's reversion to the mean...
unity1001 4y ago
> “Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” In the cutthroat randian landscape of the US business, it is the opposite: “Never attribute to incompetence, that which can adequately be explained by malice.” Incompetence, neglience, oversight etc are concepts frequently employed by the corporations to escape not only public opinion backlash, but also actually escape legal consequences in a courtroom.
- pmarreck 4y ago
  That's fair. Claiming "we didn't know the consequences" (while those consequences weren't completely impossible to predict and coincidentally benefited the defendant) would be one possible strategy.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    You have no idea - that sentence is one of the go-to legal defenses in corporate lawsuits as anyone remotely following any corporate wrongdoing cases would know.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  Walmart routinely has price mismatches between the price on the shelf and the price at checkout, to the point if it was a local store they would be shut down. But for a big company they can just say 'oops, our bad, we're just too big to do the things a store is required to do, like keep our display prices in sync with our actual prices' like the law requires. I routinely take pictures of the mismatch and submit to the FTC but nothing becomes of it. But if a local business did that they would be hit hard. Look at Amazon now with outright fraud happening, Amazon being a market for knockoffs, and the goto fence for thieves and stickup kids. Again, if that was a local business they would be so hit and management would be risking jail time. It seems like corporations are given this pass everywhere, yet average Americans get called as shills for just wanting basic corporate accountability.

jacknews 4y ago

But they all find themselves in the same predicament all at the same time, across diverse markets and services? As far as I can tell there's is no actual downturn in the market, this is all anticipation. And so it's a 'movement' even if it's not a diffuse, or actual conspiracy.

vorpalhex 4y ago
> As far as I can tell there's is no actual downturn in the market You are dramatically incorrect. Unit sales, free spending, rates and inflation. + https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stocks-poised-hit-lows-survey-010021690.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stocks-poised-hit-lows-survey... + https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/apple-sales-expected-to-fall-in-bad-week-for-big-tech-jfcvh7gbg https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/apple-sales-expected-to-f... + https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/25/inflation-is-cooling-but-high-prices-will-stick-around.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/25/inflation-is-cooling-but-hig...
- jacknews 4y ago
  https://edition.cnn.com/business/live-news/stock-market-news-today-jobs-2323/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/business/live-news/stock-market-news... It seems like there's a tussle between the finance 'economy' and the actual economy.
- jacknews 4y ago
  expected ... poised ... weak outlook ... This is again the finance/investment tail waging the economic dog.

gilbert_vanova 4y ago

I have a recent counter razor: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity what is better explained by self-interest" Many of these orgs laying off thousands have fallen into the depths of a moral maze -- where rational thinking is just impossible and all that's left is self-preservation.

widowlark 4y ago
Vanova's Razor
- asciii 4y ago
  -sigh- I google Vanova's razor and then realized you were quoting OP. :)
  - widowlark 4y ago
    It worked!
- kerkeslager 4y ago
  Vanova's Fallacy
jack_riminton 4y ago
Exactly, the incentives will explain the behaviour, they always do. I suspect managers being judged on their number of direct reports explains some of the over-hiring.
- kerkeslager 4y ago
  > Exactly, the incentives will explain the behaviour, they always do. Who cares? "I was following incentives" is no different from "I was following orders." It doesn't become suddenly okay to do harm just because there's an incentive to do harm. Hacker News and startup culture in general are toxic because of people blaming market conditions instead of taking responsibility for their own actions. If it's really about incentives, would you support docking executive pay proportional to layoffs, to incentivize against future over-hiring? Or do incentives only apply when they excuse harming workers?

imwillofficial 4y ago

I despise Hanlons razor. It flies against everything we know about people in power. Probably made popular by powerful

vorpalhex 4y ago
It was designed by a Reptillian scientist who was sponsored by the crab people from Mars. Though it may seem like a plot against humanity, it's actually just a market ploy to cause a run on aluminum foil head pieces, engineered by Big Haberdashery. And we all know what Big Haberdashery likes to engineer.
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  My favorite comment this week
pessimizer 4y ago
No, the powerful just leave out the "adequately" part, and it becomes "Unless you have access to physical evidence that something was intentional, every mistake in our favor was inadvertent."
pmarreck 4y ago
There's a better, less-oversimplified discussion of Hanlon's Razor over here: https://fs.blog/mental-model-hanlons-razor/ https://fs.blog/mental-model-hanlons-razor/ "An instance of Hanlon’s razor being proven wrong is the mafia. Prior to the 1960s, the existence of the mafia was considered to be a conspiracy theory. Only when a member contacted law enforcement, did police realize that the malice being perpetrated was carefully orchestrated." (I was not aware of this!)

dougSF70 4y ago

I agree, firms thought the era of cheap money (10+ years) combined with ramped up demand caused by pandemic would last for a good while longer. They forgot about Galton's reversion to the mean...

unity1001 4y ago

> “Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” In the cutthroat randian landscape of the US business, it is the opposite: “Never attribute to incompetence, that which can adequately be explained by malice.” Incompetence, neglience, oversight etc are concepts frequently employed by the corporations to escape not only public opinion backlash, but also actually escape legal consequences in a courtroom.

pmarreck 4y ago
That's fair. Claiming "we didn't know the consequences" (while those consequences weren't completely impossible to predict and coincidentally benefited the defendant) would be one possible strategy.
- unity1001 4y ago
  You have no idea - that sentence is one of the go-to legal defenses in corporate lawsuits as anyone remotely following any corporate wrongdoing cases would know.
ROTMetro 4y ago
Walmart routinely has price mismatches between the price on the shelf and the price at checkout, to the point if it was a local store they would be shut down. But for a big company they can just say 'oops, our bad, we're just too big to do the things a store is required to do, like keep our display prices in sync with our actual prices' like the law requires. I routinely take pictures of the mismatch and submit to the FTC but nothing becomes of it. But if a local business did that they would be hit hard. Look at Amazon now with outright fraud happening, Amazon being a market for knockoffs, and the goto fence for thieves and stickup kids. Again, if that was a local business they would be so hit and management would be risking jail time. It seems like corporations are given this pass everywhere, yet average Americans get called as shills for just wanting basic corporate accountability.