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Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." This seems to apply to several levels of this incident, up to and
by joebadmo 15y ago
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
This seems to apply to several levels of this incident, up to and including this discussion of it.
Most, if not all, of the discussion here in both directions is speculation. It seems to me that it's still early. The Google detractors here will be much more persuasive, to me at least, if they come back in a few weeks and Google has still not issued a strong apology and full, detailed explanation.
- eternalban 15y ago> Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I can see why Occam's Razor should be accepted at face value, but Hanlon's appears to be just a just-so idea without any logical foundation other than appealing to certain human prejudices. In any event, "Google detractors" can say whatever they want, but to claim that people running Google are "stupid" or that the company is governed by a mindset characterized by "stupidity" is really hard to swallow.
- phillmv 15y agoActually, I think it's a really optimistic saying. Think of it more as, "Until we rule out incompetence, we shouldn't assume malice – and incompetence is far more common than malice".
- lwat 15y agoI don't see how you can invoke Hanlon's Razor when it's now clear that it WAS in fact malice.
- RobAtticus 15y agoI think joebadmo means malice on Google's part. "Ignorance" is probably a better word than "stupidity" here. Basically, it's unlikely Google, the company, intentionally sanctioned the vandalism, but rather were unaware it was happening, and stopped doing business with the contractors when they found out.