The Non-Laws of Stupidity

[Dukasaur]

I've been reading about Carlo Cippola and his "Five Laws of Stupidity."

I find the word "Laws" completely dishonest. No empirical evidence whatsoever is offered to validate the existence of these "Laws." I think in the end it's just an annoying rant without any basis in either experimental or descriptive fact.

[jusplay4fun]

A few responses:

Use of the word "Law" overstates the importance of these ideas and the basic premise. The term "law" is not appropriate to the concepts here; these ideas are more humorous and entertaining than significant. This was first published in 1976 and how much attention does this idea get in some 45 years?


#2: This article on these so-called 5 Laws has interesting ideas and points:

https://blogforiowa.com/2021/10/24/the-five-laws-of-universal-stupidity/

I found some interesting commentary on this notion:

I ran across this article last week. While I almost couldn’t stop laughing, I also couldn’t help but to admit it was spot on.

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, Carlo M. Cipolla explained, 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.

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.

I couldn’t help but share this article. It captures so much of what is happening in America today.

One question is how much damage can stupid people do. (It reminds me of the short story "Marching Morons: by Kornbluth.)

"The Marching Morons" is a science fiction story by American writer Cyril M. Kornbluth, originally published in Galaxy in April 1951. It was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two after being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965.

The story follows John Barlow, who was put into suspended animation by a freak accident involving a dental drill and anesthesia. Barlow is revived hundreds of years in the future. The world seems mad to Barlow until he discovers the 'Problem of Population': due to a combination of intelligent people not having children and excessive breeding by less intelligent people and coupled with the development of more sophisticated machinery that makes it less important to possess intelligence in one's working life (see Fertility and intelligence), the world is full of morons, with the exception of an elite few who work slavishly to keep order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

I would argue that the USA does not have a monopoly on stupid people. NOR does CC, here and those banned.