✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

The 5 basic laws of human stupidity

bonpote.com · 91 words · saved by 1 readers

In 1976, Professor Cipolla published a 60-page essay describing the fundamental laws of a force he perceived as the greatest existential threat to humanity: stupidity. He divides humanity into four main categories: Intelligent, Bandit, Helpless, Stupid. All are defined on the basis of a win/lose concept, slightly echoing the prisoner’s dilemma. The question is: what category are you in? No matter how many idiots you suspect you are surrounded by, you are invariably underestimating the total. This problem is compounded by the biased assumption that some people are intelligent because of superficial factors such as their job, education, or other characteristics that we believe rule out stupidity. For example, Nabilla is excluded because she is a multimillionaire. And yet… This brings us to the 2nd law: Cipolla postulates that stupidity is a variable that remains constant in all populations. Every category you can imagine – gender, ethnicity, nationality, education, income – has a fixed p

For the past few years I have been non-plussed at how the left justifies tearing down civilization, because once they succeed, what is the benefit to them? They may be in charge of the rubble pile but that hardly makes sense. Now I see it: There are too many stupid people as defined and self-destructiveness is part of their nature. Now what I wonder is how this stupidity has survived evolution. You’d think these folks would fail at everything and ultimately be shunned by the rest of us. But, no. Reply

Explore this link on the map →

related reading