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The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
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The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

Came across this website highlighting those laws.

Law #1 - Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation

No matter how smart you think someone is, he will end up doing stupid shit (present company included).
You may think you hang with a cool and sensible crowd. But just wait for it, and it will happen.
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The First Basic Law prevents me from attributing a specific numerical value to the fraction of stupid people within the total population: any numerical estimate would turn out to be an underestimate

Law #2 - The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person
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People like to think of human beings as the output of a perfectly engineered mass production machine. Geneticists and sociologists especially go out of their way to prove, with an impressive apparatus of scientific data and formulations that all men are naturally equal and if some are more equal than others, this is attributable to nurture and not to nature
Leftists, anyone?

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men are not equal, that some are stupid and others are not, and that the difference is determined by nature and not by cultural forces or factors. One is stupid in the same way one is red-haired; one belongs to the stupid set as one belongs to a blood group.
I think we can attribute something to nurture. Having a stupid environment will make one reach his stupidity potential.

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We do not know how Nature achieves this remarkable result but we know that in order to achieve it Nature must operate with large numbers. The most remarkable fact about the frequency of stupidity is that Nature succeeds in making this frequency equal to the probability quite independently from the size of the group

The next paragraph shows I was wrong. σ is the percentage of the population, which is stupid:
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Whenever I analyzed the blue-collar workers I found that the fraction σ of them were stupid. As σ's value was higher than I expected (First Law), paying my tribute to fashion I thought at first that segregation, poverty, lack of education were to be blamed. But moving up the social ladder I found that the same ratio was prevalent among the white-collar employees and among the students. More impressive still were the results among the professors. Whether I considered a large university or a small college, a famous institution or an obscure one, I found that the same fraction σ of the professors are stupid. So bewildered was I by the results, that I made a special point to extend my research to a specially selected group, to a real elite, the Nobel laureates. The result confirmed Nature's supreme powers: σ fraction of the Nobel laureates are stupid

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
It is the golden rule, in a sense of it defining what is STUPIDITY.
Next he analyses the possibilities of the Stupidity based on 2 scales: Our gain/harm and the other person gain/harm.
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We all recollect occasions in which a fellow took an action which resulted in his gain and our loss: we had to deal with a bandit. We also recollect cases in which a fellow took an action which resulted in his loss and our gain: we had to deal with a helpless person. We can recollect cases in which a fellow took an action by which both parties gained: he was intelligent. Such cases do indeed occur. But upon thoughtful reflection you must admit that these are not the events which punctuate most frequently our daily life. Our daily life is mostly, made of cases in which we lose money and/or time and/or energy and/or appetite, cheerfulness and good health because of the improbable action of some preposterous creature who has nothing to gain and indeed gains nothing from causing us embarrassment, difficulties or harm.

So, we have the following types, based on the results of their actions:
Bandit - I lose, he wins. Example - Thief.
Intelligent - I win, he wins. Example - Win-Win deal.
Helpless - I win, he loses. Example - Buying an overpriced goods (from me).
Stupid - I lose, he loses. Example - Communist.
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The frequency distribution of the stupid people is totally different from that of the bandit. While bandits are mostly scattered over an area stupid people are heavily concentrated along one line, specifically on the Y axis below point O. The reason for this is that by far the majority of stupid people are basically and unwaveringly stupid - in other words they perseveringly insist in causing harm and losses to other people without deriving any gain, whether positive or negative

The main problem is lack of defense:
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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. Because the stupid person's actions do not conform to the rules of rationality, it follows that:

a) one is generally caught by surprise by the attack; b) even when one becomes aware of the attack, one cannot organize a rational defense, because the attack itself lacks any rational structure.

The fact that the activity and movements of a stupid creature are absolutely erratic and irrational not only makes defense problematic but it also makes any counter-attack extremely difficult - like trying to shoot at an object which is capable of the most improbable and unimaginable movements


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.
Yes, you are now asking yourself: "What the hell am I going to do? There is no defense, and it is unpredictable"

Here comes the next one:
Law #5 - A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
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According to the Second Basic Law, the fraction of stupid people is a constant σ which is not affected by time, space, race, class or any other sociocultural or historical variable. It would be a profound mistake to believe the number of stupid people in a declining society is greater than in a developing society. Both such societies are plagued by the same percentage of stupid people. The difference between the two societies is that in the society which performs poorly:

a) the stupid members of the society are allowed by the other members to become more active and take more actions; b) there is a change in the composition of the non-stupid section with a relative decline of populations

I think we are seeing it with our own eyes.
Stupid people running amok (SJW), people in power becoming helpless so:
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Whether one considers classical, or medieval, or modern or contemporary times one is impressed by the fact that any country moving uphill has its unavoidable σ fraction of stupid people. However the country moving uphill also has an unusually high fraction of intelligent people who manage to keep the σ fraction at bay and at the same time produce enough gains for themselves and the other members of the community to make progress a certainty.

In a country which is moving downhill, the fraction of stupid people is still equal to σ; however in the remaining population one notices among those in power an alarming proliferation of the bandits with overtones of stupidity ... and among those not in power an equally alarming growth in the number of helpless individuals ... Such change in the composition of the non-stupid population inevitably strengthens the destructive power of the σ fraction and makes decline a certainty. And the country goes to Hell.

God help us, and thank you Carlo M. Cipolla (the author)

"I love a fulfilling and sexual relationship. That is why I make the effort to have many of those" - TheMaleBrain
"Now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb." - Spaceballs
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine" - Obi-Wan Kenobi
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