The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity is a short essay written by the Italian economist Carlo Cipolla. The first edition was written in English and released in 1976. Originally, it was intentionally distributed only among his friends on a confidential basis. The reason is simple. It was intended as a sort of joke.
The 5 basic laws of human stupidity as outlined by Carlo Cipolla are as follows:
First Basic Law.
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
Stupid people exist, but according to Cipolla you may be deeply underestimating their number and influence. He was so strongly convinced about this that he asserted that “any numerical assumption would turn out to be an underestimate”. This statement was obviously an exaggeration. On the other hand, such an idea should not be taken too lightly. After all, this is not the first law by accident.
Please, think about all the people that you had judged intelligent, before realizing they were behaving stupidly and obtusely. If you are still not convinced, Cipolla suggested an experiment. Go out in the street and see how many people insist on obstructing you for no apparent reason. What would you call their behavior if not stupid?
Second Basic Law
The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
Cipolla considered stupidity as a human characteristic, like having blond hair or black eyes. Consequently, it cannot but be distributed roughly equally in all walks of society, regardless of level of education. “Whether one frequents elegant circles or takes refuge among cannibals, whether they lock themselves up in a monastery or decide to spend the rest of their life in the company of a beautiful partner, the fact remains that they will always have to deal with the same percentage of stupid people”, he concluded.
In this pessimistic view, human beings are doomed to deal with stupidity. Also, according to Cipolla, there are no safer places or solutions to avoid it. The only thing you can do is accept this and live with it for the rest of your existence.
Third Basic Law
A stupid person is one who causes losses to another person or a group of people while they gain nothing or may even suffer losses.
Carlo Cipolla considered this the golden and most important law. He did not consider stupidity a matter of IQ, but rather a lack of relational skills. In particular, he believed that it is possible to classify people based on their behavior. Stupid people are the ones who harm others and often themselves. On the contrary, the behavior of intelligent or overly naive people is aimed at helping others.
Specifically, he believed that stupid human beings behave in an irrational and difficult-to-understand way. This does not mean that their actions do not have an impact on your life. On the contrary, you are very likely to remember people who hindered you, causing you difficulties, frustrations, and suffering. What is even more surprising, that such stupid people may not even gain anything from their behavior. In fact, Cipolla stated that“there are people who, by their illogic actions, not only cause harm to other people, but also to themselves. Such people belong to the genus of the super stupids.”
Fourth Basic Law
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that in any time and place and circumstance dealing and/or hanging out with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
To make this law clearer, Carlo Cipolla added that “stupid people are deadly dangerous because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand stupid behavior”. In such a view, stupid people’s attacks always catch intelligent ones by surprise. This makes it even more difficult to come up with a rational defense. On the other hand, this would be of little use since illogic actions cannot be understood using logic.
Fifth Basic Law
Stupid people are the most dangerous type of people.
This law comes as a natural consequence of the previous and fourth basic law. Also, if you have no clue about what Cipolla meant here, he made it even more obvious by adding the following corollary:
A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.
Of the five laws seen so far, this should be the most understandable and reasonable one. In fact, common sense tells us that intelligent people, no matter how hostile they may be, are predictable. In contrast, stupid people are not. This subtle difference makes stupid people incredibly more fearsome than intelligent people.
Carlo Cipolla taught us that by using only irony and common sense, it is possible to conceive captivating ideas. As we have just seen, he was able to lightheartedly address human stupidity in a clear and incisive way. By summarizing such a complex and controversial subject in five basic laws, he devised a genuine and fascinating theory.
This is best exemplified when religious zealots want to ban the use of Timah as the name of a whiskey because alcohol is haram and Timah can be easily confused with Fatimah.
While we are at it the government should also ban the import of the following, amongst others:
- Aisha – a white wine from Italy.
- Aman – in Malay meaning ‘peace’. This is a tequila from Mexico.
- Amira –a red wine from Spain.
- Ayam –it is a wine from Egypt.
- Bintang – the best selling beer in Indonesia.
- If you want to flourish and live long, drink Omar (a whiskey from Taiwan)
- However if you feel poetic drink Omar Khayyam (U.K).
- Cap Tikus is a traditional arak from Sulawesi.
- Cinta – a sparkling wine from Italy.
- If you don’t want Cinta take Sayang (a wine from France)..
- If fed up with no 7 and 9 then go for ‘Dara’ (Virgin in Malay)- a Spanish Red.
- If none of the above please you, you can Tanya (a wine from Israel) “Apa lagi?”
- For those who worry about their soul they can take Jiwa (soul) which is a star fruit based wine from India.
- For those who want to see tomorrow, take Mata Hari (an alcoholic beverage from Austria).
- How about Raya to celebrate? This is an excellent wine from India.
(The above names courtesy of Coconut.com)
In Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, other religions show off their symbols proudly yet no Indonesian has complained of being confused. They have Hindu symbols on their rupiahs yet no one has complained.
We can find a thousand and one things to confuse us if we are so minded, each one more absurd than the last. Most of us are not confused, God has given us good brains to tell the difference.
References:
The 5 basic laws of human stupidity, Antonello Zanini (https://medium.com)
The Malays are an easily confused people, Mariam Mokhtar (https://www.mariammokhtar.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment