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1. The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003)
Hanlon's Razor
 prov.

    A corollary of Finagle's Law, similar to Occam's Razor, that reads ?Never
    attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.?
    Quoted here because it seems to be a particular favorite of hackers, often
    showing up in sig blocks, fortune cookie files and the login banners of
    BBS systems and commercial networks. This probably reflects the hacker's
    daily experience of environments created by well-intentioned but
    short-sighted people. Compare Sturgeon's Law, Ninety-Ninety Rule.

    At http://www.statusq.org/2001/11/26.html it is claimed that Hanlon's Razor
    was coined by one Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, PA. However, a curiously
    similar remark (?You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply
    result from stupidity.?) appears in Logic of Empire, a classic 1941 SF
    story by Robert A. Heinlein, who calls the error it indicates the ?devil
    theory? of sociology. Similar epigrams have been attributed to William
    James and (on dubious evidence) Napoleon Bonaparte.


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