Stupid people, Carlo M. Cipolla explained, share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves, thereby lowering society’s total well-being. There are no defenses against stupidity, argued the Italian-born professor, who died in 2000. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.
Let’s take a look at Cipolla’s five basic laws of human stupidity:
-Newmarket73
I met a lot of them.
ReplyDeleteIf we stop saving them will Darwin's Law take over?
ReplyDeleteOnly if being stupid is actually a disadvantage. Arguably, given the prevalence of stupidity and the paucity of intelligence, stupidity is somehow the more useful evolutionary trait.
DeleteStupid people share the trait of being "abundant"? Each individual stupid person is abundant? Hmmmm. Does he mean their fat? He was born in Italy, maybe it is a translation thing.
ReplyDeleteAs a group, sure, they're abundant. But that's the group and not a trait in common with the members of the group.
"It's not getting any smarter out there."--Frank Zappa
ReplyDeleteAfter working in the patch for many years, I am certain Darwin is wrong and there is a loving God. Otherwise, all of the stupid shit I seen there would have resulted in enough deaths to make the Battle of the Somme look like a walk in the park.
ReplyDeleteRead the title and said to myself, "Damn, that sounds familiar". Finally got to the abstract with illustrations and nodded, yep, read it and used to have it bookmarked. Truer now then when it was published.
ReplyDeleteFact. Half the people you meet are dumber than average.
ReplyDeleteAnd they vote.
ReplyDeleteAnd in Berkeley in 1976 there was a lot of stupidity to observe (and learn from).
ReplyDeleteI've suffered fools all my working life and can attest to the righteousness of the authors premise.
ReplyDeleteThe story "The Marching Morons" keenly predicted this; also, a solution:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm
1951 called:
ReplyDeletePaging Mr CM Kornbluth, paging Mr CM Kornbluth - The Marching Morons is ready for collection.
The premise of that story is horrifying, but the "solution" might just be more horrifying still.
Douglas Adams had the solution. Round them all up and put them on a ship to a mythical planet paradise.
ReplyDeleteCan't do that - my telephone isn't going to sanitize itself!
DeleteIdiocracy ...
ReplyDeleteMy God, he has EXACTLY described the Gov of WA, Jay "Adolf" Inslee. Especially #3.
ReplyDeleteYou might think, but he's the Gov, he can't be stupid, just power hungry. And there you would be wrong. He's actually both. He's just locked down the state again. Despite the "vaccines" and despite this didn't work before.
The definition of insanity might be doing the same thing and expecting different results but it's also the definition of stupid.
Yes indeed, he does fit the definition. As well as the adage, genius has it's limits, Stupidity has none. King dipshit proves it on a daily basis.
DeleteThe best way I've heard it expressed is like this: Almost everybody sooner or later does something that is so misguided, with such poor judgment, so out-of-character, that there can only be one explanation. We've all heard of Cupid: Little cherub, flies around, shoots you with his little bow and arrow and POW! you are smitten and in love with some person.
ReplyDeleteWell, the theory is, Cupid has an evil twin brother with a similar type mission. His name is Stupid.