Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Random Terminology: Grey's Law

(Note: While ultimately meaningless, I'm having fun posting random terms from time to time. I think I might make it a regular feature. This one was pulled from a deleted Wikipedia article. I guess it wasn't that notable.)

Grey's Law is a less-known corollary of Hanlon's Razor, which imitates the form of Clarke's Third Law. It states that:
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

While the stated principle pays a certain homage to Hanlon's Razor, it is also to some extent a rebuttal of the principle therein, stating that the distinction which the former makes is often moot. It is unclear just who the "Grey" of Grey's Law is. The quotation itself appears to have spread through email sig blocks and various social bookmarking websites, and appears to be of recent origin.

In short, idiocy is harmful, and extreme idiocy smacks of an intent.

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