4 ms·

I prefer the less epistemological version of this (gray's law) "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice" Does it matter if it'

• cmurf 3y ago
  I think advanced incompetence is actually indifference, and it's the apathy/neglect that makes for malice. It is the absence of doing the right thing.
• andrekandre 3y ago
  yes, exactly. what exactly the point of distinguishing between malice and incompetence if the result is the same? in the end it just sounds like a cope or at worst an excuse for bad behavior.
  • edmundsauto 3y ago
    If this is a genuine question, I will happily share my belief. Because people are often incompetent because they haven’t been taught/mentored. Also, people are often incompetent in one area of life but incredibly skilled in another, and because life is not just a series of transactions. Give someone coaching and you can change their life. If I assume malice, it would not be worth continuing engagement.
    • andrekandre 3y ago
      > If this is a genuine question, I will happily share my belief. yes, thanks!! > Because people are often incompetent because they haven’t been taught/mentored. i agree with this very much. it can also be because someone has been put in a position where they will fail (either by accident or malice) as well. > If I assume malice, it would not be worth continuing engagement. i largely agree, especially on a personal level but i have two minds about it with someone in power...
  • sieabahlpark 3y ago
    [dead]
• survirtual 3y ago
  This is great. Never heard it before, thank you for sharing.
• 22c 3y ago
  I think you can take it the other way as well... > Any sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence If anything, an advanced malicious actor might even be counting on you thinking they're incompetent.
  • domalhambra 3y ago
    Why? People want you ousted for malice or incompetence. They don't want either and also punish either. It sounds like it would be circling back to incompetence to think one could get away with looking hugely incompetent.
• EchoReflection 3y ago
  Intention matters. I can forgive incompetence much more easily than I can forgive malice. Usually US law leans that way too (manslaughter vs murder).
  • sleight42 3y ago
    This is a distinctly Western perspective: that intent matters. Ezra Klein has a whole podcast episode about this from a week or two ago.
    • shadowfox 3y ago
      > This is a distinctly Western perspective: that intent matters I am kind of curious about the perspective here. Is the argument that "eastern" (I assume, as opposed to "western") perspectives do not consider intent in evaluating actions?
      • jkbyc 3y ago
        A slightly different but related topic - Chomsky on why (humanitarian) intent doesn't matter: https://youtu.be/syikF6gNJDk https://youtu.be/syikF6gNJDk
        • EchoReflection 3y ago
          Video removed. Looks like even archive.org might not have caught it fast enough. https://web.archive.org/web/20210828142953/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syikF6gNJDk https://web.archive.org/web/20210828142953/https://www.youtu... But Chomsky is overrated anyway imo. Really smart, but an Ivory tower elite at the end of the day.
      • achenet 3y ago
        I don't recall the exact quotation nor the source, so there may some factual inaccuracies in what I'm about to write, but I think I read somewhere that under bushido (the samurai code), no distinction was made between someone returning a wallet because it was the 'right thing to do' and someone returning a wallet for less altruistic reasons (fear of being seen as a thief by others, etc). This would seem to support the hypothesis that not all cultures value intent as much.
• sleight42 3y ago
  Huh. I came up with this independently years ago. Unsurprising others would. Clarke's quote is infinitely useful in defining razors.