5 ms·
Shouldn't Hanlon's razor apply here instead? "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
by bmmayer1 4y ago
Shouldn't Hanlon's razor apply here instead? "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
- hattar 4y agoInterestingly, both could apply here.
- watwut 4y agoAt some point, one must stop playing perpetually naïve Pollyanna and start making realistic guesses.
- LeoPanthera 4y agoThe past few years have convinced me quite strongly that malice is sometimes, even often, the correct explanation.
- doctor_eval 4y agoSufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice… and vice versa.
- kzrdude 4y agoI think we're too slow to call it malice sometimes, aren't we? If it doesn't look cartoonishly evil we ascribe it to other intentions, I mean. While it would be more bold to just call it evil, such as: evil by neglience, evil by greed, etc.
- gruez 4y ago>While it would be more bold to just call it evil, such as: evil by neglience, evil by greed, etc. It might be more bold right now, but the net effect of expanding words to mean stuff it didn't mean before is that words get even more watered down. If "evil" includes people acting negligently, what do you call people who were actually intentionally out to cause harm? Super-evil?
- kzrdude 4y agoThat's not what I wanted to say. It depends on the situation. Not all neglience is evil, of course not. Not all greed is evil, either.
- fortran77 4y agoI think there logic is the "but what about the children?" razor. "Save _one_ hytpothetical child, and it's all worth it" is one lemma derived from this principle.
- andrewflnr 4y agoYeah, but even then usually someone has to benefit. I don't see who benefits. Drug investigators? Picking an arbitrary cutoff looks like plausible stupidity to me... Which is not to say the hospital shouldn't be punished harshly, just that probably no one should go to jail either.
- morkalork 4y agoNo idea who really benefits but there's been scandals like this before: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/27/flawed-drug-tests-split-up-scores-of-canadian-children-from-their-families-report-finds/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/2... https://projects.thestar.com/motherisk/ https://projects.thestar.com/motherisk/
- hgsgm 4y agoSometimes stupid people are malicious, muddying attempts to distinguish.
- victor9000 4y agoStupidity is the perfect alibi of malice.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- HarryHirsch 4y agovon Hammerstein-Equord, commander of the Reichswehr in the early 1930s was more focussed on outcomes: "One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage."
- px43 4y agoBoth can be true. The hospitals are doing it intentionally because some misguided stupid people think they're saving the world.