2013-03-02

The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity by Carlo M. Cipolla

According to Carlo M. Cipolla, there are five basic laws surrounding human stupidity.

I just learned about these laws within the past week. And I especially liked the definition of stupid for the third basic law.

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.

As a bonus, here is a TEDx video titled, "Think Stupid" which talks about stupidity and creativity and how they are both related. Ex: Some people can come up with "stupid" ideas that I never would have thought of.

~ Simply Advanced ~



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