Hanlon's razor
proverb

- an adage or rule of thumb that states: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

—
PHRASE ORIGIN

Hanlon's razor is named after Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The principle gained widespread recognition when it was included in Arthur Bloch's book "Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong!" published in 1980.

While the specific phrasing is attributed to Hanlon, similar ideas have been expressed throughout history:

- Robert A. Heinlein's novella "Logic of Empire" (1941) contains a similar concept, describing the "devil theory" fallacy

- H.G. Wells' "The Wheels of Chance" (1896) expresses a comparable idea about the rarity of deliberate wickedness

The name "Hanlon's razor" was inspired by “Occam's razor”, another philosophical principle that suggests simpler explanations are generally better than more complex ones.

—
BAD ACTORS IN THE BATHROOM?

The assumption that other people act with bad intentions can lead to misunderstandings.

Have you ever noticed used paper towels on the floor of public conveniences? You’d be excused for thinking that some people are just too lazy to use the bins and simply drop them on the floor. But one day—while leaving a cubicle—you notice someone drying their hands with a paper towel, then immediately using it to cover the door handle before opening it, presumably to avoid germs. As the person tosses the towel towards the bin it missed its mark and lands on the floor. The cleanliness of door handles is clearly of greater concern than waste paper in bins (or they didn’t even noticed they missed their target)!

Given that most people are neither mad nor bad — but either acting unthinkingly or in accordance with what they believe to be in their best interests — it’s worth stopping to think before jumping to conclusions.

Paul & Helga Smith

—
SYNONYMS

For “stupidity”

a few bricks short of a load (cards short of a deck, clowns short of a circus) addlebrained, addlepated, asininity, battiness, birdbrained, blockheadedness, buffoonery, bunk, claptrap, cloddishness, cluelessness, derangement, dim-wittedness, doltishness, dopiness, dottiness, dumbness, empty-headedness, fatuity, fatuousness, folly, foolery, goofiness, horse feathers, imbecility, inanity, ineptitude, jackassery, ludicrousness, lunacy, midsummer madness, monkeyshines, moronism, muttonheadedness, not the brightest bulb in the box (the sharpest knife in the drawer), numbskullery, nuttiness, out to lunch, pea-brained, poppycock, preposterousness, STUPIDITY, thick-headedness, tomfoolery, tommyrot, twaddle, vacuity, witlessness

—
SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Whenever I see a screwed up paper towel on the floor, I think of HANLON’S RAZOR and smile!”

—
Why Support OWAD?

On evenings and weekends, I research and write your daily OWAD newsletter together with Helga (my lovely wife and business partner) and our eagle-eyed daughter Jennifer. It remains FREE, AD-FREE, and ALIVE thanks to voluntary donations from appreciative readers.

If you aren’t already, please consider supporting us — even a small donation, equivalent to just 1-cup-of-coffee a month, would help us in covering expenses for mailing, site-hosting, maintenance, and service.

Just head over to DonorBox:
Please help keep OWAD alive

or

Bank transfer:
Paul Smith
IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40

Important: please state as ’Verwendungszweck’: “OWAD donation” and the email address used to subscribe to OWAD.

Thanks so much,

Paul & Helga Smith