> Hanlon’s razor only applies to individual persons, never to corporations or groups.

Why?

Do you think that the only reason for applying Hanlon's razor is some sort of moral principle (that only applies to individuals)?

I think the reason to apply Hanlon's razor is that stupidity is far more widespread than malice, and so that should be my prior. This is a purely epistemic argument, with no moral component.

I also think that larger groups always contain more stupidity than smaller groups, and I think it grows super-linearly. On the other hand, the effect of group size on malice (and on benevolence) is very complicated and unpredictable. Do you disagree with one of these beliefs?

If you agree that groups are almost always stupider than people but only sometimes more malicious, I think it's clear that I should be at least as eager to apply the razor to groups as to people.

In conclusion, an apposite quotation:

> Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless!

Agreed. A big corporation working on products for a prolonged period of time has a different level of consciousness to their work than a single individual.

Take the 737 Max as an example: It's absolutely malice, because the level of incompetency you'd have to have to let a plane into the air that can tilt all the way down by means of a single(!) faulty sensor would disqualify anyone from ever building a plane.

An aviation problem such as that is still comparatively easy for a layman to understand. When it comes to CPU-microarchitectures, I'm not so sure. But I trust they have professionals designing their chips, and my default is to assume they are competent and that malice has occured, and rather they'd have to prove the opposite.