[starbeast]

Not only can you not always distinguish them from each other, but they are very far from being mutually exclusive. Which is somewhere else that Hanlon's razor falls down. It sets them up as being options to choose between, which is obviously a very bad model.

To be honest, when I first heard Hanlon's razor, I immediately wondered what nefarious stuff Hanlon had been up to that he wanted to deflect attention away from.

Is a bit like the old aphorism 'You can't cheat an honest man', which is of most use to con artists trying to put honest people at ease before then cheating them.

edit - also you are misrepresenting Hanlon's razor. It is not an argument that says that stupidity is merely more likely, rather it says - "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".