Hanlon's Razor

Ever hear of Occam’s razor? It might be more properly spelled Ockham’s Razor, since it was William of Ockham who eventually gave this name to the principle, albeit centuries after his death.

The concept goes like this: if there are two competing explanations for something, the one that is less complicated is more likely to be right. The razor idea came about to imply shaving away anything extra.

This wasn’t a new idea when William started writing about it in the 14th century, but he did talk about it a lot. The concept is also called parsimony, and you might occasionally hear someone say they need to parse a large amount of information to simplify it.

You can draw an interesting parallel between this principle and the principle of entropy in physics. In the same way that matter has a lot more disordered states than ordered states, Occam’s razor states that things are generally explained far better without invoking additional complexity.

While Occam’s razor is useful, there are specific subsets of this concept that can be amazingly helpful in the right circumstances.

The Linda Problem illustrates one of these pretty well, where you’re asked whether a Linda is merely a bank teller, or whether she is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement. Falling into this trap is called the conjunction fallacy, but I think it’s just one version of Occam’s razor.

One other variant that I find to be extremely useful in the 21st century is called Hanlon’s razor. It goes like this:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

This is a much more modern principle, at least in terms of naming, so we can trace its origins a bit more clearly. Like with Occam’s razor, Hanlon’s razor reflects ancient wisdom in a pithy summary, so it can be easily remembered… and pulled out of a quiver to be shot at the right moment.

Someone named Robert Hanlon submitted this idea for publication to a book by Arthur Bloch called Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong!, which was published in 1980. The concept languished until a book called The Jargon File added it to its definitions a few years later, and then the internet took care of the rest.

Back over to Hanlon’s razor now. Imagine you’re driving on the highway, minding your own business, and someone cuts you off, coming dangerously close to you.

Take a moment to feel that rage.

A part of your brain will immediately insist that they cut you off on purpose, so you had to slam on the brakes. They wanted to show you who was boss, in a manner of speaking.

Breathe. Count to ten. Let’s think about this.

Is it more likely that this person simply hates you in particular? Do they want to cause you agony by scaring you into thinking they’re going to cause you to crash?

Or, is it more likely they were in a rush and just didn’t think to look over into your lane?

Now, don’t get me wrong here! They still cut you off, and that was negligent… but negligence has a very different end result in my own emotional state than an intentional attempt to cause harm.

You can use this principle for moments in your life like this. If someone ghosts you via text message, they really might have forgotten. Even if you really might have been deliberately ignored, leaving open this more benign possibility is the entire point.

If there’s enough doubt in my mind that someone really has it out for me, I’m much more likely to stop wasting my own anger and energy on that person.

I think deep state conspiracy theories are among my favorite targets for Hanlon’s razor. Is it more likely that there is a powerful, but secret cabal of influence that pulls the strings on the world’s stage, or are some world leaders just… how shall I put this delicately… morons? Having tried to work with other humans in the past, personal experience teaches me to favor the razor here.

If you assume anyone who pisses you off is a dummy, does that make you a cynical monster?

In a way, it very much can do this. That’s why I prefer to leave the possibility open in my mind that the person may have made a mistake, but it’s just a possibility… and that’s enough. Sure, there are times when a threat really is a threat, but people are much more likely to be absent-minded than malicious toward you.

Have you had moments where Hanlon’s razor might apply? Does any of this resonate with you today?