Talk:Hanlon's razor

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)

"date to at latest"

User changed text

"Earlier attributions to the idea go back to at least the 18th century"

to

"Attributions of the idea date to at latest the 18th century"

This text seemed weird to me and I edit it to "There are attributions of the idea dated by the 18th century and later" AlsoWukai reverted me with edit summary "sorry you don't understand English well". I don't think this edit summary explains anything. @AlsoWukai: Assuming I indeed dont understand English, please explain the meaning "date to at latest the 18th century" in different words. In my stupid brain "at latest the 18th century" means that the 18th century is the latest date and there are no more later attributions. - Altenmann >talk 05:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I've just changed it to "some of the oldest attributions of the idea date to the 18th century" because the source doesn't actually explain this "at least" stuff. —Panamitsu (talk) 06:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

This is fine but none of you explained to stupid me what the heck "date to at latest the 18th century" means. And if one wants nitpicking, the phrase "some of the oldest attributions" is not supported by the source cited either. - Altenmann >talk 17:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

It means "originate in the 18th century or earlier". —Panamitsu (talk) 22:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

bonhoeffer

"Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless"

From Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "After Ten Years" (As far as I am aware, though it may have been a different essay of his).

Is this a valid addition to the section on similar concepts? It was after Goethe and possibly even Churchill but still predates Hanlon. 2601:249:1880:3AE0:ED6B:4F5C:1CDE:F709 (talk) 23:24, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

This refers only to the effects of stupidity versus evil, but doesn't address at all the Razor part of Hanlon's Razor - where Occam's Razor counsels the preference to the simpler among alternative explanations of events, Hanlon's Razor counsels one to prefer an explanation of stupidity over evil. A core point of Hanlon's Razor is advice to counter the common irrational tendency to over-perceive malice, the above quote doesn't address the evaluation and decision making process. --Noren (talk) 16:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

A good point and in fact it applies to another other quote in our article "misunderstandings and lethargy perhaps produce more wrong.." So I gess we must delete it, because, as you said it expresses a different idea. - Altenmann >talk 16:58, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I think this could be a reasonable addition, if one can find secondary sources which connect bonhoeffer with hanlon. As I see it is numerously quoted in books. - Altenmann >talk 16:51, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

So let me summarize: Goethe, Bonhoeffer and Hanlon compare the two causes (malice an stupidity), but all three authors consider different apects. Goethe talks about comparative effects in producing adverse events of the two. Hanlon talks about reasonable explanations of the adverse events. Bonhoeffer compare possibility of defense against the two. All three are clearly different philosophical issues. And we can put them in one page only if there is a philosophical source which puts the thee ideas together in some general discussion of malice vs. stupidity. But that would be a subject of a different article Malice and stupidity, i.e., of intentional and unintentional evildoing. - Altenmann >talk 17:10, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Connecting malice and stupidity is addressed in many other catch phrases, such as useful idiot, The road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc. - Altenmann >talk 17:14, 10 May 2024 (UTC)