The Stupid Are Everywhere

It’s true.

Carlo M. Cipolla was an Italian economic historian.

(Aug 15, 1922 — Sep 5, 2000)

He is famous for writing, “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.”

Learn them.

Know them.

Understand them deeply and your life will become much easier.

These are Cipolla’s five fundamental 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 a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
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.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Corollary: a stupid person is more dangerous than a pillager.