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Comment by rgrieselhuber | Hacker News Reader

I’m always amazed at how many people don’t understand this. Hanlon’s Razor is just a way to sound smart while indulging in self-soothing biases.

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The practice of assessing whether a tempting evaluation of "malice" can instead cover evidence of structural faults is part of the effort towards seeing things as they are. And keeps you away from paranoia.

Spoken like someone being paid to stigmatize rational skepticism.

I proposed rational skepticism.

The notion that paranoia is the default emergent state of not assuming incompetence when potential malicious incentives can be easily articulated is just yet another ideological presupposition.

That part about paranoia was a half-joke. But no, it was not suggested (that was not a «notion») that paranoia would be a «default emergent state». It is tough a temptation of many.

And while you will often be able to identify «potential malicious incentives», you have to put those possibilities together with the rest of those which can complete the set.

Assessments must be complete.

Edit: oh, by the way, importantly: paranoia ("off-thought") means "delusionality", and in that sense the statement «And keeps you away from paranoia» was literal. "Be "cool" and exhaustive in assessment, and you will avoid getting stuck in alluring stories". The half joke was about the current use of the term (in the popular interpretation of the clinical state).

I think it's fair to say that money / power / sex will easily account for potential malicious incentives. The mindset that Hanlon's Razor fosters slows down the pattern recognition process that humans have built up throughout our entire existence. When building systems that must be resilient against corruption, the concept of zero trust serves well here.

But you have to always check. Yes, you do slow down «the pattern recognition process that humans have built up throughout»: because it is not reliable. It becomes (more) reliable through the exercise of doubt and assessment.

You have to always check in relationships with other people. When it comes to institutions / corporations / organizations, not so much and there are far fewer options to just chalk things up to incompetence. Again, in this context, we’re already talking about governments spying on their own citizens.

> When it comes to

Still people.

> incompetence

It is not a matter of technical preparation.

Or.. "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you."

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Malice is not falsifiable: anything could always just be another trick. So unless you want to end up believing everything is malice, it’s best to start with the benign explanations, until you’re sure they don’t fit.

"Stupidity" (term picked after Cipolla) is not a benign explanation. The entity stuck in the ice of Cocitus, at the bottom of hell, in Dante Alighieri's Commedia, is an apex of impotence.

But yes, it is an interesting proposal (perspective) to "resist from tempting explanation and picking the less attractive first" - just like the grit in delayed gratification.

The context here is government spying on its own citizens. Not sure how that warrants starting with benign explanations.

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