weekly mental model
for November 9 to November 15
Hanlon's Razor
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.Description
Hanlon's razor asks for reflection in situations where we perceive behavior to be intentionally malicious. A useful exercise is to rethink the scenario by replacing the malicious intent with reasons such as stupidity, stress or just plain old misunderstanding.
Examples
Your five-year old probably isn't making a mess to make your life miserable but rather because they're a toddler.
A social networking website probably didn't flag your content out of malice but rather due to a faulty algorithm.