Economics history professor Carlo Manlio Cipolla believed that there is nothing more dangerous than stupid people. There are many of them, they are irrational, by their actions they complicate the life of others, while not receiving any benefit for themselves …
Back in 1976, Carlo Manlio Cipolla, professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley, published an essay in which he described the basic laws of force, which he perceived as the greatest existential threat to human civilization - it is about stupidity.
Fools, according to Chipoll, have a number of distinctive features: there are many of them, they are irrational, by their actions they complicate the life of other people, without getting any benefit from this, which only contributes to an increase in entropy in society.
It is impossible to defend against stupidity. Therefore, smart people have to work even harder to compensate for the damage done by their narrow-minded fellows in society. In general, nothing has changed …
Let's get acquainted with the five main laws of human stupidity, which were deduced by Chipolla:
Law 1: We Always Underestimate the Number of Stupid People around Us
It doesn't matter how many idiots you see around - their real number will still be higher. This problem is compounded by the fact that you mistakenly reward some characters with intelligence, starting from such superficial factors as their career, education or other characteristics, which, by idea, should exclude them from the category of fools. In fact, this is not at all the case. Which brings us to law number two.
Promotional video:
Law 2: Whether a person is stupid or not stupid does not depend on his other characteristics
Chipolla believes that stupidity is a quantity that remains constant in all communities. Each community, which is characterized by a certain racial composition, gender, education level, income level, has a fixed percentage of stupid people.
There are dull people among scientists, among the participants of the World Economic Forum in Davos and among representatives of the UN General Assembly. There are stupid people in every nation on earth. So how many fools live among us? This is unknown. And in any case, any assumption we made would almost certainly violate the first law.
Law 3: A stupid person can be called a person who causes harm to other people or an individual person, while he does not receive any benefit from his actions and may even suffer from it himself
Cipolla named this "The Golden Law of Stupidity". In his opinion, a stupid person is a person who creates difficulties for others without any obvious benefit to himself.
Your friend is unable to stop posting fake news on his social media page? Fool. A customer service representative who has been on the phone with you for an hour, hangs up twice and somehow manages to ruin your account? Fool.
This law also describes three other human phenotypes that coexist with stupid people. The first is an intelligent person who, by his actions, benefits both himself and others. The second is a criminal who benefits from others. The third is a simpleton who enriches others at his own expense.
Smart people are a rather inconsistent group of people. Sometimes we act very intelligently, sometimes we play the role of selfish criminals, and sometimes we turn out to be simpletons, enriching other people with our actions. And sometimes we combine all these phenotypes in ourselves.
Stupid people are a model of consistency, always acting with unbending idiocy.
Consistent stupidity is the only constant quality of a dull person. This is why stupid people are so dangerous. Here's what Cipolla himself thinks about this:
All of this brings us to law number four.
Law 4: Non-stupid people are unable to fully appreciate the destructive power that fools have
For example, they all the time forget that at all times, in any place and under any circumstances, any contact with stupid people leads to consequences that have to be greatly regretted.
At our own risk, we constantly underestimate stupid people. And that brings us to the fifth and final law.
Law 5: There is no one more dangerous than a stupid person
And as a consequence: a stupid person is more dangerous than a criminal.
We cannot defeat fools. The difference between societies that are crumbling and that, on the contrary, prosper, is the size of the percentage of intelligent people who are their members.
Progressing communities, in spite of a certain number of stupid people in it, also have a significant proportion of smart individuals, those who, by their actions, compensate for all the damage caused by stupid people.
Decline societies have the same percentage of stupid people as progressive societies. But the percentage of simpletons and criminals who are inclined to commit stupid acts are much higher in them.
Chipolla sums it up: “Such a change in the composition of an intelligent population inevitably leads to an increase in the destructive power of the foolish faction, which makes the actions of members of society less and less logical. And then the country starts to go to hell."