Oct 26, 2021

On Stoopid

Sometimes it's just smart people behaving stupidly. But, as Carlo Cipolla points out, in some way or another, we almost always make the mistake of selling The Stoopid short.

5 universal laws of stupidity
  1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
  2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
  3. A stupid person is one who causes loss to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring loss himself.
  4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and in all places, and under every circumstance, to deal with - or even associate with - stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
  5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Even in a room filled with articulate,
accomplished,
highly educated people,
there are some who are destructively stupid.

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