Hanlon's Razor

Reader comment on: Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

Submitted by Lyle (United States), Jan 14, 2010 09:41

I think Hanlon's razor may apply to the behavior of a lot of financial institutions before this crisis.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

If the CEO's did not understand what their company was doing they were stupid in not demanding an explaination of how things worked at a level they could understand. If the proposers could not do this then they did not truly understand what they were proposing. Consider that the essence of the question of general relativity, can be expressed as if you are in a closed box, with no outside input, could you tell the difference between a rocket pushing you thru space(assume smooth behavior) and being on the ground?

If the ceo's thought that they might be held as stupid if they asked this kind of question, they should have adoped a corporate rule "There are no stupid questions"

Those who truly understand a subject can always make this kind of explaination, it goes with gut level understanding.

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