Comment by kortilla
5 years ago
The saying is for your own sanity. If you go around assuming every mistake is malicious, it’s going to fuck up your interactions with the world.
Everyone I know who approaches the world with a me vs. them mentality appears to be constantly fraught with the latest pile of actors “trying to fuck them”.
It’s an angry, depressing life when you think that the teller at the grocery store is literally trying to steal from you when they accidentally double scan something.
One does not have to choose between assuming everything is malice or everything is stupid. Situations in the real world are more nuanced, and hence the saying is inane.
It’s not though. Assuming malice is incorrect 99.9% of the time and correctly identifying that other fraction offers so little upside. What good does it do to realize earlier that the person is malicious and not incompetent?