corollaries to Hanlon’s razor include:
This is a better way of saying what I tried to say in my own comment
If there is a pattern of malice, it is stupidity to attribute it to stupidity.
I utterly loathe Hanlon’s razor. It’s peak naivete, especially when it’s applied to groups of people that have ulterior motives - like business interests. It essentially gives companies a carte blanche to do evil shit, and when they get caught, all they have to do is blush and say “oops, how could that have possibly happened???!” But in reality, they were just doing some sort of self-serving behavior and hoping they could get away with it. And of course, they’ll just end up doing it again a few months or years later on when the attention has died away.
Moral of the story: Hanlon’s razor does not apply to corporations or other business interests. If it’s your neighbors, well maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. If it’s a multinational conglomerate, hell no, fuck that. Assume guilt 100% of the time.
I think you’re underestimating the heavy lifting being done by “adequately”. Does stupidity adequately explain a corporation doing evil shit that made them a bunch of money? Absolutely not.
I consider the whole set of razors to be pseudologic. Just because something helps pick a conclusion regardless of context doesn’t mean it helps pick the correct conclusion.
I also don’t get why they seem to be popular with people who like to act scientific, because they seem very unscientific to me.
But yeah, hanlon’s is specifically stupid and I suspect it was popularized precisely because it advocates a default level of reasonable doubt for malicious people to hide in.
I also don’t get why they seem to be popular with people who like to act scientific, because they seem very unscientific to me.
They absolutely are. And it’s very aggravating to see people immediately invoking it without a second thought. They just assume it to be some absolute universal truth that should be accepted without question. But why?? How is that any different from religion at that point?
Use the first version with personal relationships. Dont let paranoia ruin your social circle.
With politics, assume the worst.
If they were that stupid eventually something would go right for us and against billionaires and yet it never does. If someone really believes they’re all stupid but all their mistakes happen to benefit the exact same group of people who pay them, then idk what to tell them.
No no, it can stay stupidity. But hammer home that its not an improvement
Ah, yes. The Nolnah’s Razor.
Nolnah knew
Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice
Please lord forgive them not, for they know what they are doing
Sometimes you twist yourself into pretzels trying to find rational explanations for certain things assuming they were done with malice when they were, in fact, just done by stupidity. E.g. Trump’s tariffs and the kidnapping of Maduro. Both actions had very predictable downsides for the US with virtually no upside.
Trump may be the perfect idiot to act as the facade of the capitalist class and pull all the spotlights on his person, but he isn’t the one calling all the shots. As always, it’s the capitalists that really shape the direction of politics, and now they have a great loud distraction so they can pass all their fascist policies to terrorize the working class and make it all look like the decision of a few bad apples that corrupted “democracy”.
When all this is done, assuming that there will be another election then, they will say that the big bad cheeto man has been defeated and now we can live harmoniously again, returning to the blissful ignorance of everyday class exploitation.
Did it have no upside or is there a very clear case of corruption?
Keep in mind that it doesn’t have to benefit everyone in the US or the US as a whole. It’s a few people who are massively benefiting from it and they are conveniently Trumps financial backers.
You’re missing the part that the VN gov already was willing to do everything they’re current doing. They were willing to let American companies come in and extract some oil, that was Maduro’s offer.
No Maduro had the oil nationalized https://www.dw.com/en/venezuela-opens-its-oil-sector-to-private-investors/a-75720958
You’re not understanding what I said; Maduro had already made an offer to let US companies do exactly what they’re doing right now. Venezuela’s oil company doesn’t have the capital to fully exploit the country’s reserves so they’ve always been open to working with the US and their oil companies. Maduro also understood that that’s what the US was after and was willing to compromise. So yes, it kinda looks like Venezuela is bending the knee, but they’re not doing anything now that Maduro wasn’t willing to do before.
Whatever Maduro did before was clearly not enough for the US and the oil cartel. They don’t want a mutually beneficial agreement. They want to steal everything and leave a few crumbs for the dictator they install to keep them happy and their junta armed.
All we need to know is that Trump received big donations from oil lobbies and then after winning the presidency he used the US military to give his donors what they paid for.
If you think Trump is this stupid then he fooled you.
Upside of adding and removing tariffs like he’s doing is being able to selectively suppress stock prices, drive them down scoop them up at a discount then roll back the relevant tariff and wait for the stock price recover
Never attribute to stupidity or malice that which is adequately explained by a combination of both.
The people who rule us are stupid and evil.
False. Their acts are out of malice not stupidity. Whenever they say something stupid, they don’t believe in it. They have an agenda to push.
A prime example is the recent admission from Carney of always having known the rules based order to be a convenient lie https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i6wqYYx4QtM
I don’t think things like the antivax anti public healthcare push by people like RFK could be possibly motivated by anything other than stupidity and a hubris that has them believe they’re immune to disease. Rich people and their kids will die of measles just the same as poor people.
During the pandemic, bolsonaro was catering to antivax and his whole family was pretending they werent getting vaccinated. But a leaked facebook post by his sons wife showed her mocking antivaxers, saying she was vaccinating her daughter… Theyre just playing the roles they were assigned to in public.
even if they’re vaccinating they’re own children the way public health works they’re still putting themselves at more of a risk, which is still stupid
They are both stupid and dishonest
You mean the guy that which is super against processed foods and definitely wouldn’t sell out all his “ideals” for power…
This one?
yes so explain how causing the worst public health disasters in modern history bringing back nearly eradicated illnesses which WILL harm rich people is something that benefits RFK and how, even if he were being directly paid for this, it isn’t “stupid” for its lack of foresight regarding repercussions
Kennedy received millions from the same big donors as Trump. Mostly law firms Big pharma slid into his DM’s after the elections with a few million and he already walked back many of his promises of deleting all vaccines so it kind of goes both ways.
Let’s not forget that Kennedy very shamelessly joined Trump after his own campaign failed.
Their malice doesn’t care about what the majority of people are going to suffer from. It’s about what they can gain from it themselves. If these lobbies were rationally trying maximize wealth then oil lobbies wouldn’t be trying to destroy the entire planet to keep everyone using oil.
It is stupid, but they wanna harm and control others more than they wanna benefit themselves, and they won’t live forever anyway, so they don’t care.
Okay but if it is stupid then i’m right and not the guy saying it’s just malice
Thesis: They’re either evil or stupid
Antithesis: They’re evil AND stupid
Synthesis, proposed: Malice is the difference between conscientious stupidity and predatory cultivation of ignorance.
It’s usually a mixture of both. A lot of malicious people are also very stupid.
Not really they’re always motivated by self-interest and corruption. For example when Nick Shirley makes an obviously fake documentary about “fraud in Minnesota” he’s not doing it because he’s dumb. He’s doing it because he’s receiving massive amounts of money to demonize that population.
The more social status some has the more it becomes the second one in my mind
or smth else nut there is some distinct differenece in my mind
