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Comment by M_Grey | Hacker News Reader

This feels like support for something Bernard Ingham said, "Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory."

Then the paranoid part of me wonders if that's the plan. Then the skeptical part of me says, "Occam's Razor". Then I remember that I'm insignificant in relation to these issues and I have some tea.

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This is one of my favorite comments ever. It captures so much. I often find myself in an infinite loop of "maybe X, but on the other hand Y" and periodically I just need to `kill -9`... until the next time curiosity forks.

The more general form is known as Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

Which i have pointed out time and time again on HN is a logical fallacy on its bare face, it's usually wrong, and is not a useful phrase whatsoever in intellectually honest conversation and should be relegated to the dustbin of phrases where it belongs.

And how has that worked out for you thus far?

In what way is it a logical fallacy?

It's actually pretty comforting to see that a lot of other people here feel the same way!

Yes, your thought process was very much the intended goal of this "leak." Mission accomplished.

Do you have any evidence to support that or are you just going along with OP's thought loop?

As far as I can tell, incompetence by far seems to be most likely here. I don't think NSA would wittingly give up so many nice zero-days to their first or second most powerful rival agency.

Ah, but now some people on the internet think they made a mistake. That's priceless.

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