The Curt E-mail and Hanlon’s Razor

An e-mail came in and it was brief.

No pleasantries; no salutations; just straight-to-the-point. In many cases, that’d be fine.

But in this case, it felt curt. There wasn’t a lot of history behind sender and receiver, and the main message wasn’t a particularly pleasant one.

Still, having learned about Hanlon’s Razor, I checked myself: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Or in this case, probably just carelessness.

Most people are generally nicer than they may seem. But time pressures, stress, or similar can make us neglect courtesy sometimes.