This is a digression, but this saying has always frustrated me. It makes sense for a second, but then I wonder if whoever came up with it had any idea how much malice exists in the world. Many cases of "malice is at least as adequate an explanation as incompetence, given the facts or lack of them".
"Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice"
Does it matter if it's incompetence or malice? If you care, are now forced into action, best just make a move and justify it after the fact.
Because people are often incompetent because they haven’t been taught/mentored. Also, people are often incompetent in one area of life but incredibly skilled in another, and because life is not just a series of transactions. Give someone coaching and you can change their life.
If I assume malice, it would not be worth continuing engagement.
> If this is a genuine question, I will happily share my belief.
> Because people are often incompetent because they haven’t been taught/mentored.
> If I assume malice, it would not be worth continuing engagement.
> Any sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence
If anything, an advanced malicious actor might even be counting on you thinking they're incompetent.
I am kind of curious about the perspective here. Is the argument that "eastern" (I assume, as opposed to "western") perspectives do not consider intent in evaluating actions?
But Chomsky is overrated anyway imo. Really smart, but an Ivory tower elite at the end of the day.
This would seem to support the hypothesis that not all cultures value intent as much.
A country like China would actually be in the middle on that scale, and it was also discussed how it's rapidly becoming more individualistic due to a number of policies, most notably the one-child policy.
All it really means is that when things go wrong, you shouldn't assume everyone involved is a giant arsehole trying to stick a spanner in the works.