Hanlon's Razor
Original: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
If you ask me, it is a good starting point. But it lacks a certain clarity. It implies that whenever something bad happens to someone at the hand of someone else, that other person is either malicious or stupid. This leaves out a whole host of other possibilities. For instance, they could otherwise be highly intelligent, but might...
- be misguided
- be greedy
- have a fit of a mental illness they are fighting
- were told a lie
- have had a really bad day
- have seen something stupid on the internet, that made them believe you yourself were evil
or really any other good reason despite them being either a bad or dumb person.
A revised version could go something like this: "Attribute to malice, what presents itself with irrefutable evidence. Assume unfortunate circumstances otherwise."
Murphy's Law
Original: "If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those results in a catastrophe, then someone will do it that way."
This almost undermines the human creativity when it comes to causing catastrophes.
I propose: "If there's something to be done and there is no way in Hell this can go wrong, someone will find a way to make a catastrophe happen... but it's good for bug-testing."