Talk:Hanlon's razor/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Suggestion of Early Origin

For what it's worth, my mother frequently used the exact wording of the razor as stated as early as the 1980s, and probably the '70s. (I used to believe it was original to her, though it is clear that that is [probably?] not the case.) The Heinlein quote given in the article is decidedly different. I'm not pretending to know the razor's true origin, but I know it's old. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jqavins (talk • contribs) 14:10, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, Hanlon submitted it to a book published in 1980, i.e., he did it in late 1970s. It is quite possible he did not invent the quip himself, just submitted what he heard; we will never know. Unless we find this exact saying printed in 1970s. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:18, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Earlier attributions

Some people said something similar earlier. But we have to cite reliable sources which claim that something said in the past is similar to Hanlon's razor. Otherwise it would be an opinion of a wikipedian (about similarity) hence original research. Hence my revert of "correct" references. Per our policy WP:PRIMARY, refs to primary sources are to be used only as clarifying supplements to refs to secondary sources. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:04, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

P.S. See the same issue discussed in earlier sections; archived. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:08, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Dating

I first ran across Hanlon's razor when I saw it posted on the wall of the office of the Fern Creek Neighbor newspaper in Louisville, KY. The newspaper ceased operation in 1982, so this would have been a year or two prior to that.

The version I remember is "Never ascribe to malice that which is more readily attributed to stupidity", and it was tagged "Hanlon's Razor" (though I'm not 100% sure of the spelling of "Hanlon".) drh (talk) 03:01, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

So, what new about the dating you imply? Staszek Lem (talk) 17:11, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Origin of the term "Hanlon's razor"

The Wikipedia article states that the adage became known as Hanlon's razor in 1990. But Wiktionary has a quotation from a 1980 Playboy interview which can be easily verified to use the term! It's on column 1 of this page: [1]. 70.172.194.25 (talk) 16:32, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Good find - I think it would be worth including in the previous paragraph on the Murphy's Law book, which also appeared in 1980? I guess the Murphy's Law book appeared in Jan 1980, while the Playboy appeared in October 1980, so the book may well be the source of the usage in Playboy? David Malone (talk) 19:49, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I reorganized the relevant paragraphs to clarify the chronology once more. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:59, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Excellent find @70.172.194.25:! And thanks to @Robin Lionheart: for originally adding that example w/ its source. Jasonkwe (talk) (contribs) 16:18, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Links for updates

I don't have time to do related mods this year, though someday I might get to it. In the mean time, Quote Investigator has far more detailed information at https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/12/30/not-malice/.

An important point is that the Jargon File's attribution to William James is incorrect. (Note that the WP article only links to WJ, not to a specific work.) The correct cite is to William James Lindlay. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Royal_Academy_Its_Uses_and_Abuses/IKYaAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22most+men,+do+it+with+no+malice+at+all%3B+in+fact,+far+from+it,+it+is+more+like+stupidity%22&pg=PA115&printsec=frontcover Paleolith (talk) 20:56, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the current text gives the impression that the Jargon File attribution was more than speculative, but I have added some text to cover the point that you've highlighted. The quoteinvestigator article is now cited, so possibly someone will import some of the more important information. David Malone (talk) 22:11, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Evidence against

The entire article (and mostly the French one, too) assumes that this law is valid, and busies itself with questions of prior publication. I think it would be less biased if it acknowledged that there are evil people in the world. Those of us who've had the misfortune to spend the early 21st Century in the United States certainly have plenty of evidence that Hanlon's Razor correctly describes the rank-and-file Republicans who really do take horse deworming medicine while rejecting the vaccines. To my surprise, even those right-wing talk radio hosts who are dying of COVID-19 turn out to be stupid rather than evil. But we also have plenty of evidence that almost all Republican Members of Congress will admit in private that Trump lost the election and that his movement is leading the country toward fascism, but insist on the opposite in public because they (probably correctly) believe they would be removed from office in the next Republican primaries if they spoke the truth. It doesn't seem to me that this behavior can be attributed to stupidity or to ignorance.

If I'm wrong about that, the article should still address the question. Is Trump stupid, or evil? It matters a lot. If Wikipedia is going to come down on the side of Trump-is-stupid, it needs to address the evidence to the contrary and explain why the principle still applies.

Although I like to think that naked evil in politics is a new phenomenon in this century, the whole question of slavery suggests the contrary. The article should discuss that too. Briankharvey (talk) 08:34, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Late reply but it's a philosophical razor, a rule of thumb, not an absolute. I understand your frustration but philosophical razors tend to be pithy aphorisms that are mostly true but not scientifically or rigorously tested (and weren't meant to be). Jasonkwe (talk) (contribs) 16:11, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

sorry, but a speculative statement like "I think it would be less biased if it acknowledged that there are evil people in the world" falls foul of WP:NOTFORUM. Does "evil" exist? Arguably not. Does ignorance exist? Certainly. Acousmana 16:20, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Hanlon's Razor (should it be Heinlein's Maxim?) doesn't say there is no such thing as evil nor that all foul things are explained by stupidity. It's saying don't assume something is done because of malice IF stupidity is as valid, or even a more valid explanation. Just like Occam's Razor, which says the simplest explanation is often the best choice. That means that when there are several possible explanations it's best to go with the simplest explanation. It doesn't mean that the simplest explanation is always right. It's like "never draw to an inside straight"; it doesn't mean it would never work, just that the odds are against you if you do that. Furthermore, Hanlon's razor only applies when stupidity can be an adequate explanation. Is stupidity alone an adequate explanation for Trump? Is it possible both stupidity and evil are involved? That would not be the simplest explanation, but is either evil or stupidity an adequate explanation or do both have to be involved? 2601:14A:501:A080:1DFF:5DEA:EACC:E7B8 (talk) 03:29, 13 January 2023 (UTC) (user formerly known as ileanadu).

Confusion about Napoleon v's Churchill

I found this paragraph confusing:

A similar quote is also misattributed to Napoleon.[12] Andrew Roberts, in his biography of Winston Churchill, quotes from Churchill's correspondence with King George VI in February 1943 regarding disagreements with Charles De Gaulle: "'His 'insolence ... may be founded on stupidity rather than malice.'"[15]: 771 

Did Andrew Roberts misattribute this quote to Napoleon? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2403:5808:9A3C:0:DD9E:21CD:B3B2:3D07 (talk) 23:37, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Grey's corollary

I haven't found the origin (probably Usenet), but several places mention a Grey's corollary to Clarke's third law (vel sim.): "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence (or stupidity) is indistinguishable from malice."

I just realised that we actually mention this one as "Grey's law" here, and there's even a ref! Nice. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:42, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Not the official definition

@Altenmann finds my explanation of this change inadequate. Let me try again: the article quotes Hanlon's formulation of the adage as if it were some kind of official definition. It's not. It's just a good way to state the adage. We should say, "it can be stated this way," like we do with Murphy's Law. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 03:13, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

The article quotes the original author, which is as official as can be, not some ""it can be stated this way". - Altenmann >talk 03:53, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

It's an adage. It doesn't have an "original author". As the article says, the adage existed in some form long before Hanlon's formulation became popular Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 14:17, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Please provide a WP:RS that indicates that something named "Hanlon's Razor" predates the 1980 publication or stop making vague, unsourced claims that "Hanlon's Razor" predates 1980. This page is specifically named "Hanlon's Razor". Those similar adages are covered on this page but don't override the stated subject of this page.--Noren (talk) 15:28, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOTDICT. The article is not about the term "Hanlon's Razor." It's about an adage that is conventionally labelled "Hanlon's razor". Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 16:03, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Hah, so you are a fan of Haddock's Eyes, aren't you? Your colleague was talking not about the term either: he was talking about 'something named "Hanlon's Razor"'. Dictionary or not, we identify things by their names, not Ding an sich. Anyway, as our colleague pointed out, you have to find a credible source for your claim to be added into a wikipedia article. - Altenmann >talk 16:09, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm not going to respond to personal attacks. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 16:20, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Are you going to respond to requests about WP:RS? - Altenmann >talk 02:35, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

This discussion is guaranteed to go nowhere as long as either of you is participating. Jesus, you're both incredible at saying exactly the wrong things to each other. City of Silver 03:38, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Please see WP:WORDISSUBJECT. The subject of the article is the exact phrase "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", commonly known as "Hanlon's razor", and it doesn't matter one bit whether Hanlon is the originator. If Robert J. Hanlon had absolutely nothing to do with it, the only difference in the article would be to state that it's misattributed to him. It's meaningless to speak of an "official definition" here. According to how you've applied the notion of a definition to this subject, a definition of "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" is "The phrase 'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity' is a phrase composed of the following words in the following sequence: 'Never', 'attribute', 'to', 'malice', 'that', 'which', 'is', 'adequately', 'explained', 'by', and 'stupidity'". We can also speak of a formulation: "The formulation of 'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity' goes as follows: 'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity'".—Alalch E. 02:56, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion: Official Definition

Starting over the previous discussion with (hopefully) more participants.

I'll restate the issue: currently the page begins this way:

Hanlon's razor is an adage or rule of thumb that states:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

This formulation of the adage is a direct quote from a book by Robert Bloch, not Robert Hanlon, though it's widely accepted that Bloch used the adage with Hanlon's permission.

My problem with this is that it treats Bloch's book as the official version of an adage that had already been around for a while. It didn't even get called "Hanlon's Razor" until it appeared in the Jargon File. Now, it's a good way to formulate the adage, but we shouldn't treat it as the formulation. So I want to make a minor change:

Hanlon's razor is an adage or rule of thumb that, in a typical formulation, states: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

As you can see from the previous section, a couple of other editors disagree. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 17:43, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose and speedily close You cannot add unreferenced statements into Wikipedia article and start a huge discussion about this. Please provide a source that says "a typical formulation" or something to this end. If this editor bothered to provide a reference instead of playing insulted for unknown reason, there would not be this (and above) discussion in the first place. By the way, please do not restore removed unreferenced test. This is against wikipedia rules, e.g., WP:BURDEN. - Altenmann >talk 20:07, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not adding anything at all. I'm referencing statements that are already in the article.

  Also, can we please turn down the volume? I'm simply using the RFC process to bring more people into the discussion. This is the wrong context to be saying things like speedily close: It amounts to yelling a certain expletive and is a pretty serious violation of WP:CIVIL. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 21:15, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose The discussion had not been open for even a day before this was escalated to RFC, nowhere near enough time to thoroughly discuss the matter with any other parties. No WP:RS has been provided for the claim that Hanlon's Razor had 'already been around a while', nor is any source provided for any other 'formulation' of Hanlon's Razor. --Noren (talk) 23:55, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I have canceled the RfC. As mentioned above, please discuss the issue first, with reliable sources. There can't be an RfC for every disagreement. Johnuniq (talk) 02:27, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

• It didn't even get called "Hanlon's Razor" until it appeared in the Jargon File. Really? It's called Hanlon's razor in Bloch's book; this article says that it was first included in the Jargon File in 1990 (and indeed it doesn't seem to have been included in the 1983 version published as The Hacker's Dictionary), which is ten years after Bloch called it Hanlon's razor. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:11, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/12/30/not-malice/ Levivich (talk) 19:32, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

formatting the lede

@Davide King: Why not set off the adage, so it's more obvious?

This article and the adage are short, and burying the adage inside a paragraph makes it harder to find, at least for me. If it's set off as it was before your edit of 2023-12-14T12:57:13 I think it's much easier to find. Thanks for your support of Wikipedia, but I'm reverting this change. DavidMCEddy (talk) 13:25, 14 December 2023 (UTC)