Hanlon's Razor

Category
General Thinking Tools
Description

"Harder to trace in its origin, Hanlon’s Razor states that we should not attribute to malice that which is more easily explained by stupidity. In a complex world, this principle helps us avoid extreme paranoia and ideology, often very hard to escape from, by not generally assuming that bad results are the fault of a bad actor, although they can be. More likely, a mistake has been made." - Shane Parrish “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness.” (related: fundamental attribution error — “ the tendency for people to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics of the agent (character or intention), rather than external factors, in explaining another person’s behavior in a given situation.”) - Gabriel Weinberg

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Resource Datasbase
Source

Shane Parrish's Farnam Street Mental Model Guide via https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/mental-models/ --- Gabriel Weinberg's Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful via https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1cc405d