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3.0 KiB
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19 lines
3.0 KiB
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Hanlon's Razor</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../H.html" title="H"/><link rel="previous" href="hang.html" title="hang"/><link rel="next" href="happily.html" title="happily"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Hanlon's Razor</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="hang.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">H</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="happily.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="Hanlons-Razor"/><dt xmlns="" id="Hanlons-Razor"><b>Hanlon's Razor</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">prov.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> A corollary of <a href="../F/Finagles-Law.html"><i class="glossterm">Finagle's Law</i></a>, similar to
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Occam's Razor, that reads “<span class="quote">Never attribute to malice that which can
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be adequately explained by stupidity.</span>” Quoted here because it seems
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to be a particular favorite of hackers, often showing up in
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<a href="../S/sig-block.html"><i class="glossterm">sig block</i></a>s, <a href="../F/fortune-cookie.html"><i class="glossterm">fortune cookie</i></a> files and the
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login banners of BBS systems and commercial networks. This probably
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reflects the hacker's daily experience of environments created by
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well-intentioned but short-sighted people. Compare
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<a href="../S/Sturgeons-Law.html"><i class="glossterm">Sturgeon's Law</i></a>, <a href="../N/Ninety-Ninety-Rule.html"><i class="glossterm">Ninety-Ninety Rule</i></a>.</p><p>At <a href="http://www.statusq.org/2001/11/26.html" target="_top">http://www.statusq.org/2001/11/26.html</a>
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it is claimed that Hanlon's Razor was coined by one Robert J. Hanlon of
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Scranton, PA. However, a curiously similar remark (“<span class="quote">You have
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attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from
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stupidity.</span>”) appears in <i class="citetitle">Logic of Empire</i>, a
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classic 1941 SF story by Robert A. Heinlein, who calls the error it
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indicates the ‘devil theory’ of sociology. Similar epigrams
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have been attributed to William James and (on dubious evidence) Napoleon
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Bonaparte.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="hang.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../H.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="happily.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">hang </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> happily</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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