[jongjong]

That's a good one. In my experience, corruption is almost always disguised as neglect and incompetence. Corrupt people meticulously cover their tracks by coming up with excuses to show neglect; some of them only accept bribes that they can explain away as neglect where they have plausible deniability. It doesn't take much brainpower to do well, just malicious intent and knowing the upper limits.

IMO, Hanlon's razor "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" is a narrative which was created to condition the masses into accepting being conned repeatedly.

On the topic, I subscribe to Grey's law "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice" so I see idiots as malicious. In the very best case, idiots in positions of power are malicious for accepting the position and thus preventing someone more competent from getting it. It really doesn't matter what their intent is. Deep down, stupid people know that they're stupid but they let their emotions get in the way, same emotions which prevent them from getting smarter.

[lanstin]

Barry Apppelman, for a long time the boss of all the Unix engineers, said malice was preferable to incompetence because malice would take breaks.

[rdtsc]

However malice is directed. When it doesn’t take breaks it does a lot more damage usually.

One can argue malice can be controlled with incentives at some level, though.

[bmsan]

So can "stupidity". If something is possible for a human to do, it's something that's possible for any sufficiently-enabled/supported human to do. I've heard it put that the inability to understand or do something is a matter of not having acquired the necessary prerequisites. So, the incentives to control stupidity are the incentives to acquire and apply the prerequisite skills or knowledge.

[vasvir]

Yes and in addition malice is enough times predictable while incompetence is just a quantum void where the probabilities are inverted and your hard earned intuition doesn't help you...

[lanstin]

I don't seem to be able to edit this anymore, but there is a grievous gap in the writing: "Barry Appelman, for a long time the boss of all the Unix engineers at AOL."

[specproc]

Hmm, sure, but if you want to spot malice, look for the one not taking breaks.

[schmidtleonard]

I wouldn't attribute malice to Hanlon's razor, but yes, even dogs and small children know how to play dumb and the children just keep getting better at it.

[chiefalchemist]

True story: CEOs, cops,and politicians (and their appointees) are good at it as well.

[kenjackson]

Ehh... I think neglect and incompetence are super common. I have a sink full of dishes downstairs to prove it. I think corruption, while not rare, is still far rarer. Horses over zebras still (at least in the US).

[MichaelZuo]

‘Sufficiently advanced’ is the key term, e.g. if your sink was located on the premises of 5 star hotel then that would probably be indistinguishable from malice.

[czl]

> On the topic, I subscribe to Grey's law "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice" so I see idiots as malicious. In the very best case, idiots in positions of power are malicious for accepting the position and thus preventing someone more competent from getting it. It really doesn't matter what their intent is. Deep down, stupid people know that they're stupid but they let their emotions get in the way, same emotions which prevent them from getting smarter.

I think you have things backwards. Being dumb is the default. It takes ability and effort and help to get smarter. Animals and children are dumber than us. Do you think they realize it?

Perversely many who are dumb are trapped thinking they are not dumb:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effec...

A dumb person (like a dumb child or animal) are what they are one should not attribute malice. Better to try to see things from their point of view and perhaps help them be smarter. This is what I try to do.

Your other remarks are 100% just the point above was sticking out hence my comment.

[jongjong]

Yes this resonates.

I feel that stupidity is evil in the same way as that a shark might be perceived as evil. You could explain it away as "It's not their fault, it's in their nature, they don't know better" but if it's in their nature to cause people harm, if anything, it makes the label more applicable from my perspective.

[lazide]

While that may be a kind view, practically it is rarely a useful one. At least for the person holding it.

Especially when power, violence, money, or sex are involved.

[ScoobleDoodle]

Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities.

That is to say some of the incompetent are so incompetent they can’t distinguish between their incompetence and an actual expert. This is exhibited very publicly in some contestants of the American Idol genre of shows.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effec...

[brnaftr361]

D&K ironically misengineered their tests and inadventently misconstrued their data due to floor and ceiling effects. If you ran the gamut of their tests against random noise you get similar results.

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking/dunning-...

I posit that anyone who uses DK unironically is actually committing to the DK-paradox, something I'll leave you to define for yourself.