The missing blades of Hanlon's razor
Incompetence and stupidity are the least of our problems
“In philosophy, a razor is a principle or a rule of thumb, that allows for the elimination (the “shaving off”) of unlikely explanations for a phenomenon.”
Hanlon’s razor says:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity or neglect
I always had a problem with the condescending arrogance hidden in it.
Almost as much as I have with its assumptions and shortsighted reductionism.
The word ‘malice’ carries the assumption of bad outcomes as it is unlikely that malice can lead to good outcomes. The premise therefore is that bad outcomes are more likely the result of cognitive, than moral failures. Weaknesses instead of sins. We can look at Hanlon’s razor as an attempt to relativize responsibility.
The unfortunate fact is that bad outcomes are far more likely to be the result of morally questionable intent than stupidity or neglect. Not necessarily malice, not necessarily bad or nefarious intent, but things that are definitely more serious than the failings implied in ‘stupidity or neglect’.
Hanlon’s razor is most often called upon to stave of conspiracy theories and wild speculations.
While I can sympathize with the intent, in practice, it is used to trivialize responsibility for actions that led to clearly bad outcomes. It does that through misdirection.
It is applied with the implied message that if you can blame something on stupidity or neglect, you should stop looking for more complex explanations. You should NOT look for institutional inertia, corporate corruption or destructive ideologies.
Hanlon’s razor is the get out of jail free card of the Emily Osters of this world. The ones who ask for immunity for the ‘mistakes’ that were made.
Even if we accept stupidity or neglect as the explanation, shouldn’t that raise some questions?
Shouldn’t we ask what is an ‘adequate explanation’? What enabled the stupidity or the neglect?
Stupidity is not an explanation and it is most definitely not an excuse.
The missing blades of Hanlon’s razor are the many layers between proximate and ultimate causes that lead to potentially harmful outcomes. The layers between stupid and malicious.
The layers that are not necessarily stupid or malicious, but clearly influenced the outcome.
When drug company executives hide damaging information about the safety of their product, are they acting out of malice, or can they honestly believe that the good their product can do outweighs the harm it can cause? When does delusional self-deception turn into fraud?
When politicians, for some campaign contributions secure immunity for said executives, are they acting out of malice? They are just helping friends who are just trying to help people. (See Painkiller.)
What influences bad outcomes, what we should look for instead of malice, are indifference, corruption and righteousness.
Institutional indifference
Companies, organizations, agencies have their missions, their reason d’être. Their self interest will always override the elusive idea of the public good.
Companies owe their allegiance to their shareholders, not their customers.
Teachers’ unions don’t care about the interest of children, their job is to represent teachers.
Government bureaucrats care more about keeping their jobs than they care about the job itself.
Regulators (a special class of bureaucrats) care more about justifying their existence than they care about the things they regulate.
Politicians care about getting re-elected more than they care about the actual interest of their constituents.
Does this make them evil or malicious? Of course not.
There is a slight of hand in the question above. Did you catch it? You should ask: who am I talking about? Conceptual entities do not have feelings. Only the people representing them can be seen as rational and moral actors, which in turn begs for the question: what makes an individual acting in the name of an institution rational and moral? Loyalty, or his own internal moral compass?
Let’s look at the question in practice.
Corruption
Institutional self interests create a complex web of corrupting influences.
Just consider the web of the big-pharma-healthcare-medical-political complex.
Big pharma is corrupting medical research, publications and medical education with grants, the media with advertising, the medical profession and politicians with outright bribes, the regulators with their ‘expert advice’ etc.
Politicians protect the industry with patent laws and legal immunity; the medical profession with licensing and the suppression of alternatives.
The media is pushing the official narrative of all other players while censoring any dissenting opinion.
The problem and the question, again, is intent. Does this have to be nefarious? Are they acting out of malice?
Ideology
The virtue signaling idiots we are churning out of our universities see themselves as the paragons of virtue when they are cheering on the looting and destruction perpetrated by their favoured victim groups.
Communist countries in the 20th century killed 100 million of their own citizens with the best of intentions. All without ever holding the ideology responsible. Communists of today say that “mistakes were made”, but we should trust them now, because they have the best of intentions which will guarantee that this time it will work.
The neo-communists of the 21st century are just as blood-thirsty in their righteousness as their 20th century predecessors were.
When they screw up – as they always do – will they get another pass? They will simply claim that mistakes were made, just as they do today about the communist past.
Most of the screw-ups, most of the bad outcomes that we apply Hanlon’s razor to, are blamed on stupidity (mistakes). The razor suggest that we should not look for any other cause, even though there is a plenty of examples.
Let me give you just three.
#1 The Big Data competition
As I am writing this, I am also in the middle of setting up a new computer for my 89 years old mother-in-law. I have to make it as simple for her as possible. No confusing messages, no advertising, no complex security requirements, no synching of browser settings with her non-existent smart phone. No stupid pop-ups, no junk-ware or two-factor authentication.
It is a nearly impossible task that I already spent more than a day on.
Her new laptop came with Windows 11 Home edition. This version does not allow for local accounts. You are forced to use a ‘Microsoft account’ which can record any and every activity on the computer. Microsoft is pushing Windows users very aggressively toward ‘reliance’ on cloud storage for everything. To help us, of course. To make it easier, safer and more convenient for us.
Of course, they are lying. The point is to collect the gold coins of the digital age: data. It’s nothing personal; they may even think that they are doing it for the greater good. The commercial benefit is just a fortunate side effect. It could be used for ill purposes, but that is not the point. (That’s the future.) For now, it’s just a mad competition for the data and to find the best (meaning the most profitable) use for it.
Is that malicious? Is it nefarious intent? Will it lead to bad outcomes? Can it? If it does, what will be seen as the cause? Malice, stupidity or neglect?
#2 The plandemic
Talking about the plandemic already feels like flogging a dead horse, but it is still the best example of institutional self interest, corruption and ideology gone bad. Let me say it again with
:Mistakes were not made.
#3 Dystopian control
The US house just passed a new law with a “…mandate that requires all new vehicles after 2026 be equipped with a kill switch that can disable a vehicle if the vehicle has monitored the user’s the driver’s performance, and that the vehicle determines that the driver is not performing well.”
Read the article, it is chilling. The vote on the amendment was predictably partisan, the reason for which should be a question on its own.
The new law is laden with assumptions and expectations, it is pointing so far beyond the excuse used to justify it that it is difficult to believe that it’s not intentional, that it’s has no nefarious intent.
Yet, when it will go wrong (as it inevitably will), Hanlon’s razor will be applied.
Nobody at that point will remember representative Massie’s objections. Nobody will look for malice when looking at the stupid outcome.
Out of the three most common causes I named here, self-interest, corruption and ideology, the last one is the most dangerous and most dominant.
It is also the most difficult to fight as it is protected by the armor of righteousness.
It is no accident that even corruption and self interest are trying to hide behind it.
We could use any number of examples demonstrating the same problem, but my only goal here was to demonstrate a fundamental flaw in the concept itself.
Am I wrong? Let me know in the comments.
After I finished this post, I read the latest post of Elizabeth Nickson of
It is a treasure chest of essential information and a perfect example to show the defect in the Hanlon’s razor concept.
Words and promises are abstract and very malleable. Basing you life on them is like standing on quicksand. But Results are measurable, and happen in the "real-world". They are not just another narrative, but the only standard to measure by.
This guy Hanlon is a "fluff-merchant". You deserve to be the victim of very repeated scam, if you listen to him.
Hanlon is the reason behind every indifference, corruption and righteousness. It is the loophole whereby real justice is always defeated. In other words "token justice" is severe, the blacks are in prison, and the mini-scams are held to account. But major corporate and political malfeasance is always exonerated, and even made into a hero. I believe the 2-3 landmark cases in corruption are less than 1% of the actual. How can you possibly know the true extent when the investigative branch is continually de-funded? These criminals are "too-big to fall", and they cannot be prosecuted.
Whereas the law, (if it were meant to improve the situation), would state that if you wrong a person you'll be brought to justice. But if you have taken on the Public Trust, and wrong 100 million people, at the very least you should pay treble damages. Jail terms should be tripled for public betrayal. Thirty years is a good median. Taken out of circulation.
It is not that I am vindictive. This is the only way to stop the circus that is called public service. I thought Meng Wanzhou's detention in Canada held promise. A chief financial officer was being prosecuted for a corporate misdeed. It was the precedent for breaking the corporate shield for personal fraud of American CEO's. But it came to nothing.
By the way, a used Windows 10 computer can be operated without a Micro-Soft ID. I am writing on one now. You can have a Windows trial version. It is just an authorization that you make right on your own computer, comes due every 6 months or so. I would never operate with a Microsoft ID, nor an Apple ID, nor even a Google ID, an any but the most innocuous situation involving my legacy identity.
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