https://freewestmedia.com/2022/08/10/stupid-people-are-more-dangerous-than-bandits/
The five basic laws of human stupidity
Germany is becoming an example of what Italian economic historian Carlo Maria Cipolla described 35 years ago. Cipolla published a 60-page essay on the fundamental laws of stupidity, which he sees as the greatest existential threat to humanity. The prescient essay became an international bestseller.
Cipolla (1922 to 2000) divided humanity into four categories: intelligent, bandit, helpless and stupid. They are defined based on a win/loss concept. Swiss author Christopher Pfluger recently revisited his enlightening classification.
A stupid person is a person who causes problems for others and harm to himself. An intelligent person is someone whose actions benefit both themselves and others. Then there is the bandit who enriches himself at the expense of others. And finally the helpless whose actions enrich others at their expense.
Law 1: Everyone always and inevitably underestimates the number of stupid people
This problem is exacerbated by the assumption that some people are intelligent because of superficial factors such as occupation, education, or other characteristics that we believe preclude stupidity. A typical fallacy is the assumption that rich people are inherently intelligent.
Law 2: The probability that a person is stupid is independent of all other characteristics of that person
Cipolla postulated that stupidity remained constant in all populations. In every conceivable category – gender, race, nationality, education, income – there is a fixed percentage of stupid people. University professors, US presidents or “experts” can also be stupid, ie benefit neither themselves nor others and, in the worst case, bandits.
Law 3. A foolish person is a person who harms another person or group of people, although he himself does not benefit from it and even suffers losses
It is impossible to determine how many fools there actually are, not least because the not-dumb are an inconsistent group. Sometimes we act intelligently, sometimes not. The stupid ones are a paragon of consistency in comparison.
According to Cipolla, stupid people are dangerous and harmful above all because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behavior. An intelligent person can understand the logic of a robber: he wants an advantage for his account; he just isn’t wise enough to find a way that benefits everyone. One can thus anticipate a predator’s actions and his foul maneuvers, and therefore build a defense.
All this is not possible with a stupid person, as the third basic law explains. There is no rational way to tell if, when, where, how, and why he or she will attack. If you face a stupid person, you are at his mercy. This analysis leads to law number 4.
Law 4: Non-stupid people always underestimate the destructive power of stupid people
In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that associating and/or collaborating with stupid people anytime, anywhere, and under any circumstances is a costly mistake. We underestimate idiots, and we do so at our own peril. This brings us to the fifth and final law.
Law 5: A stupid person is the most dangerous kind of person
And the direct consequence: a stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit. We can’t do anything for idiots. The difference between societies that collapse under the weight of their stupid citizens and those that overcome them, lies in the composition of the non-stupid.
Societies that thrive despite their stupid citizens have a high proportion of intelligent people who make up for the losses of the stupid by making gains for themselves and those around them.
The only way for a society not to be overwhelmed by the burden of its idiots is for the non-stupid to work even harder to compensate for the losses of the stupid.