In 1976, Carlo Cipolla, a professor of economic history, derived a social law, by which we can group people into four categories: The first he called “the helpless”, the second are “the intelligent”, the third are “the bandits”, and the last are “the stupid”. The stupid person is the most dangerous type of person, and in groups far more powerful than the Mafia, the Military or Communism, Cipolla warned. To arrive at this conclusion, we need to understand his 5 Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.
1: Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. 2: The probability that a person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. Education, wealth or status have nothing to do with it.
3: A stupid person is someone who causes losses to other people while himself deriving no gain. 4: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid people and keep forgetting that to deal with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake. 5: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person, even more dangerous than a bandit.
Cipolla then considers four factors of human behavior. A person can cause benefits to others, benefits to themselves, losses to others and losses to themselves. If Tom takes an action and suffers a loss, he’s helpless.
If Tom benefits himself, while also benefiting Jerry, he’s intelligent. If Tom helps himself, but causes Jerry a loss, he's a bandit. And if Tom does something that’s of no benefit to him, but causes Jerry a loss he’s stupid.
Ineffectual people are in the center. Let's now look at the effects of these groups on society. Helpless people contribute to society but are taken advantage of by others, especially bandits.
And so their contribution is limited. Note that extreme altruists or pacifists may willingly accept a place in this category for moral reasons. Intelligent people contribute to society and leverage their contributions into reciprocal benefits.
Their actions lead to a net gain to society, which is why helpless people should always support intelligent ones. Bandits pursue their own self-interest and enrich themselves, even when doing so poses a harm to society. Helpless and intelligent people should try to stop them.
Stupid people always contribute to a net loss to society. But not only that. As they do so for no obvious reason, Their actions also frustrate, anger and confuse everyone else.
Against major cultural trends among his fellow intellectuals, Cipolla was convinced that men are not equal. That some are stupid and others are not, and that the difference is determined by nature and nothing else. One is stupid in the same way one is red-haired, he wrote.
Cipolla warned that the damaging potential of the stupid person therefore depends on the amount of stupidity inherited, as well as their position of power in a society. Among bureaucrats, generals and politicians one has little difficulty in finding clear examples of basically stupid individuals, whose damaging capacity was alarmingly enhanced by the position of the power they occupied. What are your thoughts on stupidity?
Are people born or made stupid? Or is it, as usual, more complex, and is there an interrelationship between the two? Share your thoughts, and read more about Cipolla's work and amusing essay — which originally was only intended for friends — in the descriptions below.
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