Posted on 12/08/2020 12:53:26 PM PST by hank ernade
Cipolla gave a work of beautiful clarity in his essay on the phenomenon of stupidity and its effects on human survival. These are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:
1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
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.
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.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
Corollary: a stupid person is more dangerous than a pillager.
Further expanding the basic principles of the 5 Laws was a study from Eötvös Loránd University that determined,
1. Ignorance or overconfidence. It would be the highest degree of stupidity and appears in people who take risks of any kind, although they lack the skills or knowledge necessary to face them.
2. Lack of control. It’s a medium degree of stupidity that corresponds to impulsive people, who lack self-control and act letting themselves be carried away by the first impulse.
3. Distraction. It would be the slightest degree of stupidity, which manifests itself in those who fail to achieve something because they don’t pay attention or don’t allocate sufficient resources, struggling uselessly.
Consider point 2 in context of Never Trumpers and those motivated by hatred of Trump.
The value of Cipolla's work is in understanding movements that rely on the uneducated and lower stratas of a society to attain their aims, and why gains achieved using such people usually come to a bad end.
Think about societies that foster large numbers of dependent people.
Like Socialism
Better to say nothing ... right?
Perhaps.
But always be aware that the Dunning-Kruger effect is VERY strong in people who want to be leaders and run your life for you.
#1 = be a Democrat.
Those who want to rule the most are generally the least qualified.
A few other sub-laws regarding stupidity
1. It is possible to be stupid in select areas and not others.
2. Education is no defense against stupidity. Advanced degrees often do not measure your intellect but your ability to follow the rules of the discipline.
3. It is easier to pass stupidity to your children than intelligence.
L8r
The referenced article is lengthy with no references of its own.
That’s Clue No. 1.
Law 4 is the reason Dirty Joe Biden will go down in history somewhere between Boss Hawg and Baron Munchausen.
Along with Nixon, Ford, and the pygmy Bush men.
And...Statistically, half the people you meet are below average.
Went over your head huh
It’s a brilliant article.
General rule of thumb, power should never be given to anyone who craves it!
Fun seeing this again after all these years. I knew Carlo Cipolla 30+ years ago. Really interesting & entertaining guy, spell-binding lecturer despite his thick Italian accent. Hard to believe he’s been gone for 20 years.
“Those who want to rule the most are generally the least qualified.”
Those who think they can rule the world are stupid but relatively harmless.
The dangerously stupid ones are those who believe that guy can rule the world.
Beware of stupid/energetic leaders (officers)
German general Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord oversaw the composition of the German manual on military unit command (Truppenführung), dated 17 October 1933.
He conceived of a classification scheme for officers:
I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions.
One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.[31]
bigtime N V U
the man was brilliance personified
More than half
My boss is a Ph.D. and he answers my questions by re wording my question back to me...
Candidates for the Cipolla Stupid Prize
BLM
If the Chinese resume their once place as the largest empire on Earth, the dummies of BLM will think Jim Crow was the Good Times.
Even Russians like blacks more than the Chinese.
The article can be summarized: “There are more stupid people causing problems than you think.”
This is something that has been verified frequently while driving to work, especially when waiting for the driver in front to sense the traffic light has reached the appropriate shade of green before he/she decides to move the vehicle.
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