I utterly loathe Hanlon’s razor. It’s peak naivete, especially when it’s applied to groups of people that have ulterior motives - like business interests. It essentially gives companies a carte blanche to do evil shit, and when they get caught, all they have to do is blush and say “oops, how could that have possibly happened???!” But in reality, they were just doing some sort of self-serving behavior and hoping they could get away with it. And of course, they’ll just end up doing it again a few months or years later on when the attention has died away.
Moral of the story: Hanlon’s razor does not apply to corporations or other business interests. If it’s your neighbors, well maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. If it’s a multinational conglomerate, hell no, fuck that. Assume guilt 100% of the time.
I think you’re underestimating the heavy lifting being done by “adequately”. Does stupidity adequately explain a corporation doing evil shit that made them a bunch of money? Absolutely not.
I consider the whole set of razors to be pseudologic. Just because something helps pick a conclusion regardless of context doesn’t mean it helps pick the correct conclusion.
I also don’t get why they seem to be popular with people who like to act scientific, because they seem very unscientific to me.
But yeah, hanlon’s is specifically stupid and I suspect it was popularized precisely because it advocates a default level of reasonable doubt for malicious people to hide in.
But razors aren’t supposed to be logic in the first place. They’re not objective analytical tools to arrive at a conclusion, because they weren’t designed to be. They’re framing tools to help establish an initial hypothesis.
Occam’s razor doesn’t claim that the simplest explanation is true, it merely says it’s the most practical assumption, all else being equal. If additional data provides more support for a more complicated explanation, Occam’s really doesn’t require you to cling to the simpler one.
Similarly Hanlon’s razor doesn’t claim that stupidity is universally a better explanation than malice, only that is the most practical assumption, all else being equal. It does not require you to ignore patterns of behavior that shift the likelihood toward malice.
Yeah, that use of them makes sense, as a method to churn out hypotheses. But their wording suggests to me that they might not have been created for that purpose (Hanlon’s uses the word “never”) and I think the vast majority of the time I see people invoking them in discussions is to try to discredit another comment, not to explain why they are presenting a hypothesis (in fact, once you have the hypothesis, the brainstorming method used to get there isn’t really relevant anymore, next step should be determining ways to support or oppose that hypothesis).
It’s just frustrating seeing people quoting razors as if they are supporting evidence, and that is the pseudologic part.
I’ll also point out that “pseudoscience” or “pseudologic” doesn’t mean it’s useless, just that it isn’t as profound as many seem to believe it is.
I’d say more “select from” than “churn out”. It’s not about generating a hypothesis, it’s about having a collection of hypotheses and deciding which should be your default until additional evidence is provided.
Hanlon’s razor says “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”, and “adequately” is pulling at least as much weight as “never”. If stupidity becomes a less adequate explanation, nothing stops you from considering malice as an alternative.
People use things wrong all the time, sometimes the vast majority of the time (e.g. “literally”). Just because people use a concept pseudologically doesn’t make it intrinsically pseudological.
The paradox of intolerance is the one that’s been getting to me lately. People forgot that its a paradox and think it’s justification for them to attack people they disagree with.
I also don’t get why they seem to be popular with people who like to act scientific, because they seem very unscientific to me.
They absolutely are. And it’s very aggravating to see people immediately invoking it without a second thought. They just assume it to be some absolute universal truth that should be accepted without question. But why?? How is that any different from religion at that point?
I utterly loathe Hanlon’s razor. It’s peak naivete, especially when it’s applied to groups of people that have ulterior motives - like business interests. It essentially gives companies a carte blanche to do evil shit, and when they get caught, all they have to do is blush and say “oops, how could that have possibly happened???!” But in reality, they were just doing some sort of self-serving behavior and hoping they could get away with it. And of course, they’ll just end up doing it again a few months or years later on when the attention has died away.
Moral of the story: Hanlon’s razor does not apply to corporations or other business interests. If it’s your neighbors, well maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. If it’s a multinational conglomerate, hell no, fuck that. Assume guilt 100% of the time.
I think you’re underestimating the heavy lifting being done by “adequately”. Does stupidity adequately explain a corporation doing evil shit that made them a bunch of money? Absolutely not.
I consider the whole set of razors to be pseudologic. Just because something helps pick a conclusion regardless of context doesn’t mean it helps pick the correct conclusion.
I also don’t get why they seem to be popular with people who like to act scientific, because they seem very unscientific to me.
But yeah, hanlon’s is specifically stupid and I suspect it was popularized precisely because it advocates a default level of reasonable doubt for malicious people to hide in.
But razors aren’t supposed to be logic in the first place. They’re not objective analytical tools to arrive at a conclusion, because they weren’t designed to be. They’re framing tools to help establish an initial hypothesis.
Occam’s razor doesn’t claim that the simplest explanation is true, it merely says it’s the most practical assumption, all else being equal. If additional data provides more support for a more complicated explanation, Occam’s really doesn’t require you to cling to the simpler one.
Similarly Hanlon’s razor doesn’t claim that stupidity is universally a better explanation than malice, only that is the most practical assumption, all else being equal. It does not require you to ignore patterns of behavior that shift the likelihood toward malice.
Yeah, that use of them makes sense, as a method to churn out hypotheses. But their wording suggests to me that they might not have been created for that purpose (Hanlon’s uses the word “never”) and I think the vast majority of the time I see people invoking them in discussions is to try to discredit another comment, not to explain why they are presenting a hypothesis (in fact, once you have the hypothesis, the brainstorming method used to get there isn’t really relevant anymore, next step should be determining ways to support or oppose that hypothesis).
It’s just frustrating seeing people quoting razors as if they are supporting evidence, and that is the pseudologic part.
I’ll also point out that “pseudoscience” or “pseudologic” doesn’t mean it’s useless, just that it isn’t as profound as many seem to believe it is.
I’d say more “select from” than “churn out”. It’s not about generating a hypothesis, it’s about having a collection of hypotheses and deciding which should be your default until additional evidence is provided.
Hanlon’s razor says “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”, and “adequately” is pulling at least as much weight as “never”. If stupidity becomes a less adequate explanation, nothing stops you from considering malice as an alternative.
People use things wrong all the time, sometimes the vast majority of the time (e.g. “literally”). Just because people use a concept pseudologically doesn’t make it intrinsically pseudological.
The paradox of intolerance is the one that’s been getting to me lately. People forgot that its a paradox and think it’s justification for them to attack people they disagree with.
They absolutely are. And it’s very aggravating to see people immediately invoking it without a second thought. They just assume it to be some absolute universal truth that should be accepted without question. But why?? How is that any different from religion at that point?