In case you prefer to read this post in Italian check out the translations ChatGPT wrote for me.
Hello friends! I hope you’re having a fantastic weekend. Today's post finds its genesis in a blog post that rekindled my memories of a unique book I read a few years back as recommended by a University professor. As someone who seldom revisits books, this one is among the rare exceptions. Upon rereading it I thought it provided the content for a fun post. So, buckle up for a slightly unconventional post and I hope you find it as captivating as I do.
The book is called The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity is a brief yet powerful composition by the acclaimed Italian economist, Carlo M. Cipolla, in 1976. It makes for a riveting read and a potentially delightful gift; thus, I can't recommend it enough. Interestingly, Cipolla, an esteemed scholar who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, is perhaps most well-known for this succinct piece that was originally meant to be satirical. This booklet became super popular and the most recent version has a foreword written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (the author of Black Swan and Antifragile) who defined it "A masterly book"!
“The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" ventures into the territories of sociology, psychology, and economics, presenting a humorous yet grave examination of a pervasive, underestimated, and profoundly influential facet of human behavior: stupidity. Cipolla suggests that stupidity is more than just an individual defect; it is a pervasive trait significantly shaping societal dynamics. He outlines five laws of Human Stupidity, which will be the main pillars of our exploration in this post.
Deciphering Stupidity
Understanding Cipolla's perspective requires a clear comprehension of his distinctive definition of 'stupidity.' He separates stupidity from the traditional connotations of a lack of intelligence or knowledge. Instead, he characterizes it as an innate quality that prompts actions detrimental to others and, quite often, to the person involved.
Cipolla envisions stupidity as a formidable force influencing society profoundly. He argues that its unpredictability makes it a more treacherous trait than malice or egotism. While we can anticipate a malicious person's actions, the unpredictable behavior of stupid individuals renders them more harmful. Furthermore, he states that stupidity is not confined to socio-economic status, education, or any personal attributes; it is universal, indiscriminate, and more pervasive than we usually perceive.
Our daily life is mostly made of cases in which we lose money and/or time and/or energy and/or appetite, cheerfulness and good health because of the improbable action of some preposterous creature who has nothing to gain and indeed gains nothing from causing us embarrassment, difficulties or harm. Nobody knows, understands or can possibly explain why that preposterous creature does what he does. In fact there is no explanation — or better, there is only one explanation: the person in question is stupid.
In Cipolla’s view the stupid individual is the bottom-left quadrant of the matrix defined by two dimensions: Benefit to Society and Benefit to oneself. The stupid is the individual who creates a damage to others (i.e. to society) while also damaging himself.
Stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behaviour. An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit’s actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality. The bandit wants a plus in his account.
Another important consideration is that most people do not act consistently. Under certain circumstances a given person acts intelligently and under different circumstances the same person will act helplessly. The only important exception to the rule is represented by the stupid people who normally show a strong proclivity toward perfect consistency in all field of human endeavours.
The 5 laws of Human Stupidity
Being a scholar Cipolla arguments his entire thesis into 5 laws:
Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. It's a sobering proposition that, despite our best efforts, we continually underestimate the prevalence of stupidity around us. This underestimation comes from our inherent optimism or perhaps a misjudgment of what constitutes stupidity.
The probability that a certain person will be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. Cipolla's second law underscores the universal nature of stupidity, asserting that stupidity is not confined to any race, class, nationality, gender, profession, or other demographics. Stupidity can be found everywhere and in everyone. This is precisely coherent with Forrest Gump’s famous “Stupid is as stupid does”!!
A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. The third law is what the author calls the “Golden Rule” and it is essentially what’s showed by the chart I pasted above. In this law the author demarcates the territory of stupidity from malice and self-interest. While a malicious person might harm others for personal gain, a stupid person does so without any potential benefit, often causing damage to themselves in the process. “Human beings fall into four basic categories: the helpless, the intelligent, the bandit and the stupid”.
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people infallibly turns out to be a costly mistake. One is tempted to believe that a stupid man will only do harm to himself but this is confusing stupidity with helplessness. On occasion one is tempted to associate oneself with a stupid individual in order to use him for one’s own schemes. Such a manoeuvre cannot but have disastrous effects because a) it is based on a complete misunderstanding of the essential nature of stupidity and b) it gives the stupid person added scope for the exercise of his gifts.
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. With a corollary: A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit. The unpredictability and irrationality of stupid people, combined with their potential to cause damage, makes them more dangerous than any other category of people.
What are the implications on societies of Human Stupidity?
The author argues that “according to the Second Basic Law, the fraction of stupid people is a constant σ which is not affected by time, space, race, class or any other socio-cultural or historical variable. It would be a profound mistake to believe the number of stupid people in a declining society is greater than in a developing society. Both such societies are plagued by the same percentage of stupid people. The difference between the two societies is that in the society which performs poorly the stupid members of the society are allowed by the other members to become more active and take more actions”.
How do you feel about our current society? Are we governed by a disproportionate amount of stupid people?
The author of the blog post I linked at the top used this framework to comment on the infamous attack to Capitol Hill by Trump’s supporters: “Under some f*ked up version of wokeness, we have decided that stupid people are a special interest group who warrant empathy and latitude re the damage they levy. We excuse Trump’s mob, as they are the ones America left behind or who didn’t have access to higher education. No, they’re just stupid — even the ones with “Senator” before their name. The President and his mob registered a deep blow to our democracy and global standing … with no commensurate benefit.”
We need to recognize that stupid is a thing and, per Professor Cipolla, encourage our youth to discern how not to be stupid and to aspire to be “intelligent,” which also is a thing … and a noble thing, and not derived from a place of privilege that demands apology and self flogging.
Wish you all a great Sunday, as free as possible from stupid people!!