Carlo M. Cipolla (1922–2000)

Fascinating and salient points, especially today in the wake of the lasting damage that has been done by a stupid person allowed to hold the highest, most powerful office in the United States. It’d be interesting to read Cipolla’s reflections on society today.

I disagree with several of his assertions, such as the number of stupid people being relatively constant as well as rooted in nature, rather than nurturing. It’s also not totally clear what he views as a gain or a loss, other than obvious examples. He also completely misses the mark in saying that “in the modern industrial world, class and caste are banished, both as words and as concepts, and religion is fading away.” I’d like to think he’d retract that statement if he were alive today. Every word of what he said there was wrong.

That said, laws 3-5 hit deeply during this time of visceral responses without any true thought of interaction. This is a fascinating and quick read that will make one think about how they interact with people in daily life. Actually, it’ll just make one think.… (more)

Cipolla defined stupidity as doing harm to others or groups with no added value, merit or gain to the stupid person. I would add as a general contribution that a stupid person may therefore act out of malice (psychological compensation of a vicious individual, a mental bandit gaining rewarding psychological credit for doing damage), ignorance (in which he is part helpless and part stupid) or stupid stupid (in which a morron acts and destroys withal comprehension of his doings). There is short-ranged stupidity in which a group of morrons discuss their political cafeteria ideas without doing damage to any other than their own escalation of stupidity in mutual claquerry or long-range stupidity in which acts of governments, people of power spread throughout society and destroy everything on their way while pulling everyone into a catastrophy. There are also, I may add, idiots with a mission, those zealots of a single idea spreading and disseminating their stupidity forcefully to others compensating for their own inconsistency, blinded enough not to see their errors. There are also masquaraded fools that act consistently in their castles of delusions and despite obtaining information about the world are biased enough to serve as a prime example of "accomplished idiocy" - those nurtured little boys and girls turning adults that never truly lived, never really travelled, never experienced anything else than their petty simpleton's world, never done anything of significance, but find themselves busy discarding the work life and words of others based on a preposterious notion that they are in the "right" and their interlocutors are "idiots". A word of advice: When you masquarade yourself among fools, do not lose guard, or they will turn audacious as soon as they feel superior or safe, they will start offending you.… (more)

You can find our full review here:

https://thebeerthrillers.com/2023/11/20/book-review-the-basic-laws-of-human-stup...

An excerpt from the review:

1. Everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals among us.
2. The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses themselves.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

The first is exceptionally true. We all underestimate the number of stupid individuals among us. They are everywhere. Its like shape shifters, alien lizard people, like the Skrulls from Marvel, they are hiding in plan sight. They might even be someone you know – your best friend, your mum, your girlfriend even, who knows? Thats how insidious this “disease” [stupidity] is.

The book is pretty blunt in its language and phrasing. Theres no real political correctness, but there is no real political [in]correctness either. It just is. For example, rule number two is pretty straight forward – the stupid person is stupid because he’s not stupid; not because of any other defining characteristic. His race, his ethics, his nationality, his location, his place of birth, the way he looks, his gender, the skin color, etc, doesn’t matter. He is stupid — simply because — he is stupid.

George Carlin pretty much best sums it all up:

“Consider that the average person is stupid. Now, consider that most people are below average.”
George Carlin

I would have to look up the date for Carlin’s quote in question to see if he was inspired by Cipolla or vice versa; but they are basically cribbing off each other on this one.

Whereas Carlin is looking at things kind of more on an anecdotal, sociological side of things, more for the purposes of just humor with a bit of provocation of thought – Cipolla is doing it on kind of a philosophical, sociological, and academically / scholarly side. The economics and finance background of Cipolla lends him some credibility with the probability, the statistics, and the scholarly worldview. Whereas Carlin is making the statement and moving on with his monologue, Cipolla has science to back himself up and gives it to us.........................

Read the full review here: https://thebeerthrillers.com/2023/11/20/book-review-the-basic-laws-of-human-stup...… (more)