The first law of stupidity
The Italian historian and economist Carlo Cipolla took a very thorough approach to the question of the nature of stupidity. Years of research led him to formulate five universal laws that work in any society. It turned out that stupidity in itself is much more dangerous than we are used to thinking about it.
A person always underestimates the number of idiots who surround him. It sounds like vague banality and snobbery, but life proves it is true. No matter how you evaluate people, you will constantly face the following situations:
A person who has always looked smart and rational turns out to be an incredible idiot;
Fools always appear in the most unexpected places at the most inopportune times to ruin your plans.
The second law of stupidity
The likelihood that a person is stupid does not depend on his other qualities. Years of observations and experiments have confirmed me in the idea that people are not equal, some are stupid, others are not, and this quality is laid by nature, not cultural factors. A person is as foolish as he is red-haired or has the first blood group. He was born that way by the will of Providence, if you will.
Education has nothing to do with the likelihood of a certain number of fools in society. This has been confirmed by numerous university experiments on five groups: students, office workers, service personnel, administration staff, and teachers. When I analyzed a group of low-skilled employees, the number of fools was more than I expected (First Law), and I attributed this to social conditions: poverty, segregation, lack of education. But going up the social ladder, I saw the same ratio among white collars and students.
It was even more impressive to see the same number among professors – whether I took a small provincial college or a large university, the same proportion of professors turned out to be fools. I was so amazed at the results that I decided to conduct an experiment on the intellectual elite – the Nobel laureates.
The result confirmed the superpowers of nature: the same number of laureates were stupid.
The idea expressed by the Second Law is difficult to accept, but numerous experiments confirm its reinforced concrete correctness.
Feminists will support the Second Law because it says that women are no more fools than men are fools.
Residents of third world countries take comfort in the fact that developed countries are not so developed. The implications of the Second Law are daunting: will you move into British high society or move to Polynesia by befriending local bounty hunters; Whether you imprison yourself in a monastery or spend the rest of your life in a casino surrounded by corrupt women, you will have to face the same number of idiots everywhere, which (First Law) will always exceed your expectations.
The third law of stupidity
A fool is a person whose actions lead to losses for another person or group of people and at the same time do not benefit the actor himself or even turn into harm for him. The third law assumes that all people are divided into 4 groups: simpletons (P), clever people (U), bandits (B), and fools (D).
If Petya takes an action from which he bears losses and at the same time benefits Vasya, then he belongs to simpletons (zone P). If Petya does something that benefits both him and Vasya, he is a smart guy, because he acted smartly (zone U). If Petya’s actions benefit him, and Vasya suffers from them, then Petya is a bandit (zone B). And finally, Petya the fool is in zone D, in the minus zone along both axes.
It is not hard to imagine the magnitude of the damage that fools can inflict in the governing bodies and with political and social powers. But it is worth clarifying separately what exactly makes a fool dangerous.
Foolish people are dangerous because rational people have a hard time imagining the logic of unreasonable behavior. A smart person is able to understand the logic of a bandit, because the bandit is rational – he just wants to get more benefits and is not smart enough to earn them. The bandit is predictable, so you can build a defense against him.
It is impossible to predict the actions of a fool, he will harm you without a reason, without a goal, without a plan, in the most unexpected place, at the most inopportune time. You have no way of knowing when the idiot will strike. In a confrontation with a fool, an intelligent person completely surrenders himself to the mercy of a fool, a random creature without rules clear to the wise guy.
A fool’s attack usually takes everyone by surprise. Even when an attack becomes obvious, it is difficult to defend against it because it has no rational structure.
The fourth law of stupidity
Non-fools always underestimate the destructive potential of fools. In particular, non-fools constantly forget that dealing with a fool, at any time, in any place, under any circumstances, means making a mistake that will cost dearly in the future. Zone P simpletons are usually unable to recognize the danger of Zone D fools, which is not surprising.
What is surprising is that fools are also underestimated by clever people and bandits. In the presence of the fool, they relax and enjoy their intellectual superiority instead of urgently mobilizing and minimizing damage when the fool throws something out.
A common stereotype is that a fool only harms himself. No. Do not confuse fools with helpless simpletons. Never enter into an alliance with fools, imagining that you can use them for your own benefit – if you do this, then it is obvious that you do not understand the nature of stupidity.
So you yourself provide the fool with a field in which he can roam and cause more damage.
The fifth law of stupidity
The fool is the most dangerous type of personality. Corollary: a fool is more dangerous than a bandit. The result of the actions of the ideal bandit is a simple transfer of goods from one person to another. Society as a whole is neither cold nor hot from this.
If all members of this society were ideal bandits, it would quietly rot, but the disaster would not have happened. The whole system would be reduced to the transfer of wealth in favor of those who take action for this, and since everyone would be ideal bandits, the system would enjoy stability. This is easy to see in any country where the government is corrupt and citizens are constantly bypassing the law.
When fools enter the scene, the picture changes completely. They deal damage without gaining benefit. Benefits are destroyed, society becomes poorer.
History confirms that at any period the country progresses when there are enough smart people in power to restrain active fools and prevent them from destroying what the smart ones have produced.
In a regressing country, there are the same number of fools, but among the elite there is an increase in the share of stupid bandits, and among the rest of the population – naive simpletons.
Such a change in the alignment invariably intensifies the destructive consequences of the actions of fools, and the whole country is going to hell.
Author: Igor Olegovich Bogdanov
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