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Thread: The 5 Laws of Human Stupidity.

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    Default The 5 Laws of Human Stupidity.

    Worth a look for a laugh.



    The five universal laws of human stupidity

    By April 29, 2017


    In 1976, a professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley published an essay outlining the fundamental laws of a force he perceived as humanity’s greatest existential threat: Stupidity.
    Stupid people, , share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves, thereby lowering society’s total well-being. There are no defenses against stupidity, argued the Italian-born professor, who died in 2000. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.
    Let’s take a look at Cipolla’s five basic laws of human stupidity:
    Law 1: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
    No matter how many idiots you suspect yourself surrounded by, Cipolla wrote, you are invariably lowballing the total. This problem is compounded by biased assumptions that certain people are intelligent based on superficial factors like their job, education level, or other traits we believe to be exclusive of stupidity. They aren’t. Which takes us to:
    Law 2: The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
    Cipolla posits stupidity is a variable that remains constant across all populations. Every category one can imagine—gender, race, nationality, education level, income—possesses a fixed percentage of stupid people. There are stupid college professors. There are stupid people at Davos and at the UN General Assembly. There are stupid people in every nation on earth. How numerous are the stupid amongst us? It’s impossible to say. And any guess would almost certainly violate the first law, anyway.
    Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
    Cipolla called this one the Golden Law of stupidity. A stupid person, according to the economist, is one who causes problems for others without any clear benefit to himself.
    The uncle unable to stop himself from posting fake news articles to Facebook? Stupid. The customer service representative who keeps you on the phone for an hour, hangs up on you twice, and somehow still manages to screw up your account? Stupid.
    This law also introduces three other phenotypes that Cipolla says co-exist alongside stupidity. First there is the intelligent person, whose actions benefit both himself and others. Then there is the bandit, who benefits himself at others’ expense. And lastly there is the helpless person, whose actions enrich others at his own expense. Cipolla imagined the four types along a graph, like this:

    VINCEDEVRIES

    Stupidity, graphed.The non-stupid are a flawed and inconsistent bunch. Sometimes we act intelligently, sometimes we are selfish bandits, sometimes we act helplessly and are taken advantage of by others, and sometimes we’re a bit of both. The stupid, in comparison, are paragons of consistency, acting at all times with unyielding idiocy.
    However, consistent stupidity is the only consistent thing about the stupid. This is what makes stupid people so dangerous. Cipolla explains:
    Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behavior. 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 on his account. Since he is not intelligent enough to devise ways of obtaining the plus as well as providing you with a plus, he will produce his plus by causing a minus to appear on your account. All this is bad, but it is rational and if you are rational you can predict it. You can foresee a bandit’s actions, his nasty maneuvres and ugly aspirations and often can build up your defenses.
    With a stupid person all this is absolutely impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy.
    All of which leads us to:
    Law 4: 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 always turns out to be a costly mistake.
    We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril. This brings us to the fifth and final law:
    Law 5: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
    And its corollary:
    A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.
    We can do nothing about the stupid. The difference between societies that collapse under the weight of their stupid citizens and those who transcend them are the makeup of the non-stupid. Those progressing in spite of their stupid possess a high proportion of people acting intelligently, those who counterbalance the stupid’s losses by bringing about gains for themselves and their fellows.
    Declining societies have the same percentage of stupid people as successful ones. But they also have high percentages of helpless people and, Cipolla writes, “an alarming proliferation of the bandits with overtones of stupidity.”
    “Such change in the composition of the non-stupid population inevitably strengthens the destructive power of the [stupid] fraction and makes decline a certainty,” Cipolla concludes. “And the country goes to Hell.”

    Cheers, Tiny
    "You can lead a person to knowledge, but you can't make them think? If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
    The information is out there; you just have to let it in."

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    I don't get it.

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    That is why I never say stupid, I always say stubborn stupid.
    I have also always said that worst enemy you can have is a stubborn stupid one.
    You can never win against them because they will always cause you a loss, you can not reason or make a deal with them.

    So I agree in this part with what Cippola claims but his main problem is, like with most people: Generalisation.

    I like the way he describes the non-stupid where they can be sometimes in the helpless and bandits category but I say they can sometimes act stupid too.


    He should have better categorised people between stubborn and open minded!


    Stupid on it's own is an un-word for me.
    Sometimes an intelligent person does something stupid(as in no benefit for them self or others) accidentally or out of stress and sometimes you just need
    to go one step back before you can advance to the next step.
    Not everything you do has to be anybody's benefit. Sometimes it is just fun to be stupid, kind of like a holiday from always having to be rational, productive or do something that benefits somebody.

    Sometimes being irrational can be creative and eventually lead to somebody's benefit.

    So I claim the the lack of open mindedness of his 'laws' somewhat stupid

    Stupid as in lack of open mindedness is humanity’s greatest existential threat.
    Last edited by Uncle Fester; 09-06-19 at 10:55 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by nomeat View Post
    That is why I never say stupid, I always say stubborn stupid.
    NO!
    The are stupid people out there today and they are not Stubborn. I had a Heart Attack had 3 stroke and at 69 year old I still run rings around most of the Population today that dont have the biggest thing that I have and that is COMMON SENSE

    Im surprise how many people that are young and some of them work in a good job but in General they are Stupid mainly because they have no common sense and cant work out anything. I HATE THAT ADD on Tv where a young man and young woman has to go to a mob to plan how to spend their money (Fortnightly Budget or weekly Budget) Get real!!! They are really stupid if they cannot budget there own money for F..ck sake

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    Quote Originally Posted by nomeat View Post

    I like the way he describes the non-stupid where they can be sometimes in the helpless and bandits category but I say they can sometimes act stupid too.

    Many of time over the last 20 years you would see a bank Robber rob a Bank and the get away car had a Flat Battery and cant start the car out the front of the Bank and when the Police Grabbed the robbers and interviewed them at the Police station the Detective there said " Didn't you know your get away car had a problem with starting" and the Crook said Yes But we didn't have the Money to buy a New Battery. Many times on the News you will see reported the most stupid crook of the year award

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr 672A View Post
    NO!
    The are stupid people out there today and they are not Stubborn. I had a Heart Attack had 3 stroke and at 69 year old I still run rings around most of the Population today that dont have the biggest thing that I have and that is COMMON SENSE

    Im surprise how many people that are young and some of them work in a good job but in General they are Stupid mainly because they have no common sense and cant work out anything. I HATE THAT ADD on Tv where a young man and young woman has to go to a mob to plan how to spend their money (Fortnightly Budget or weekly Budget) Get real!!! They are really stupid if they cannot budget there own money for F..ck sake
    I actually go a lot further, please read my signature, which includes followers of TV ads and fashion, but it is their stubbornness that makes them consumer idiots.

    As I said non stupid people can still make mistakes but they are the ones who learn from their 'stupidity'.
    It are the the ones who are stubborn that don't.

    You must not forget that something that appears stupid for you might be of benefit for them.
    Overseas located tech support for telcos comes to mind. They all get paid for being as useless as possible in solving your issue.


    Having a heart attack and 3 strokes was IMO at least 3 incidents too many.
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    Quote Originally Posted by nomeat View Post


    Having a heart attack and 3 strokes was IMO at least 3 incidents too many.
    But at the same time I can still run rings around people today to a point that its very, very obvious to other that people make silly mistakes and I say to them and they know it " Do you ever think before doing something" use you brain for F..k sake, you have a New Brain not effect like mine with illness but the trouble is you don't use it.. I have said this to many time on lots of people in the last 5 years

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    Quote Originally Posted by nomeat View Post
    includes followers of TV ads and fashion, but it is their stubbornness that makes them consumer idiots.
    Yes I totally 100 agree. I CANNOT UNDERSTAND ADDS where there is a High profile person on the ADD and the average idiot says OHHH I have to buy this because this person is on the add. I only had a argument with a person last week only because he said to "I buy my Spare for his Old Holden From RARE SPARES only because John Bowe recommend them and has his photo on the front door. yeah. What about the Idiot at Shopping Centers when its Election time, They see the Prime Monster or the other Idiot on the other side and people say oooOOH I will have to vote for him just because they saw them at a Shopping center, ooOOO I wont say what My Friend says that is a Solicitor during a trial where they pick (Barrister picks) the Jurors and say most of them are BRAIN DEAD and the Prosecutor love this to have stupid people that have no brains and not smart enough to see how the Prosecutor is running the case where the defense team is not allow to say anything during the start of the case.

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    Quote Originally Posted by nomeat View Post

    Having a heart attack and 3 strokes was IMO at least 3 incidents too many.
    More likely 4 incidents too many!

    I'm stubborn, but not stupid, even if I am brain damaged, I always reckon it was the bit I never used anyway. If I can see the value in something then I will keep at it until I see a result.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    Quote Originally Posted by lsemmens View Post
    More likely 4 incidents too many!

    I'm stubborn, but not stupid, even if I am brain damaged, I always reckon it was the bit I never used anyway. If I can see the value in something then I will keep at it until I see a result.
    I DID say "at least"

    Not saying it is wrong to be stubborn as long it provides benefit, but I also try to see if there is room for improvement, which I often end up finding and that gives me great satisfaction.

    Life is too short to just wait for a result, so I try at least to find a quicker one.
    Then again there is sometimes this gut instinct that tells me to hold on and have patience.
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