“Harder to trace in its origin, Hanlon’s Razor states that we should not attribute to malice that which is more easily explained by stupidity. In a complex world, this principle helps us avoid extreme paranoia and ideology, often very hard to escape from, by not generally assuming that bad results are the fault of a bad actor, although they can be. More likely, a mistake has been made.” – Shane Parrish
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness.” (related: fundamental attribution error — “ the tendency for people to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics of the agent (character or intention), rather than external factors, in explaining another person’s behavior in a given situation.”) – Gabriel Weinberg
Source:
Shane Parrish’s Farnam Street Mental Model Guide via https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/mental-models/
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Gabriel Weinberg’s Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful via https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1cc405d
