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yannisThe first essay, The Fundamental Laws of Human Stupidity, explores the controversial subject of stupidity. Stupid people are seen as a group, more powerful by far than major organizations such as the Mafia and the industrial complex, which without regulations, leaders or manifesto nonetheless manages to operate to great effect and with incredible coordination.
These are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:
Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.
A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.
Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.
As is evident from the third law, Cipolla identifies two factors to consider when exploring human behaviour:
Benefits and losses that an individual causes to him or herself.
Benefits and losses that an individual causes to others.
By creating a graph with the first factor on the x-axis and the second on the y-axis, we obtain four groups of people:
Intelligent people (top right)
Helpless / Naive people (top left)
Bandits (bottom right)
Stupid people (bottom left)
Cipolla further refines his definition of "Bandits" and "Helpless People" by noting that members of these groups can either add to or detract from the general welfare, depending on the relative gains (or losses) that they cause themselves and society. A bandit may enrich himself more or less than he impoverishes society, and a helpless person may enrich society more or less than he impoverishes himself. Graphically, this idea is represented by a line of slope -1, which bisects the second and fourth quadrants and intersects the y-axis at the origin. The helpless people and bandits to the left of this line are thus semi "stupid," because they represent a net drain of societal welfare.
These are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:
Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.
A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.
Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.
As is evident from the third law, Cipolla identifies two factors to consider when exploring human behaviour:
Benefits and losses that an individual causes to him or herself.
Benefits and losses that an individual causes to others.
By creating a graph with the first factor on the x-axis and the second on the y-axis, we obtain four groups of people:
Intelligent people (top right)
Helpless / Naive people (top left)
Bandits (bottom right)
Stupid people (bottom left)
Cipolla further refines his definition of "Bandits" and "Helpless People" by noting that members of these groups can either add to or detract from the general welfare, depending on the relative gains (or losses) that they cause themselves and society. A bandit may enrich himself more or less than he impoverishes society, and a helpless person may enrich society more or less than he impoverishes himself. Graphically, this idea is represented by a line of slope -1, which bisects the second and fourth quadrants and intersects the y-axis at the origin. The helpless people and bandits to the left of this line are thus semi "stupid," because they represent a net drain of societal welfare.
