Tuesday, October 26, 2021

The Five Laws of Stupidity

 As defined by Carlo Cipolla and probably influenced by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

2. The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

3. A stupid person is one who causes losses to another person or a group of people while they gain nothing or may even suffer losses.

4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that in any time and place and circumstance dealing and/or hanging out with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

5. Stupid people are the most dangerous type of people.

The most interesting law is number 3 because it leads to four categories of people depending upon how they affect themselves and others.

Intelligent People - Generate gains for themselves and gains for others.

Bandits - Generate gains for themselves and losses for others.

Helpless People - Generate losses for themselves and gains for others.

Stupid People - Generate losses for themselves and losses for others.

Bonhoeffer made the point that stupidity is far more dangerous than malice.

I'm not really that sure about #2. While it's true that anyone can be stupid based upon this definition some characteristics may mitigate the possibility.

No comments: