Monday, October 03, 2005

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
by Carlo M. Cipolla, Professor of Economics, UC Berkeley
in Whole Earth Review, Spring 1987

Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
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The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
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A stupid person is a person who caused losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
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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 costly mistake.
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A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
The corollary of the Law is that
A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

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