The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

by Carlo M. Cipolla

The Basic Laws asserts that 1) there will always be more stupid people than you think, 2) the proportion of stupid people is invariant to intellectual, social or geographic segmentation. The ratio will be the same among Nobel Prize winners as it will be among a selection of tax accountants

axiomatic definition of what stupid means: someone who harms others without procuring any gain for himself or herself

Finally, one wonders: why is there a constant proportion of stupid people, invariant to time, place, geography, profession, body mass index, degrees of separation from the Queen of Denmark, and professional rank? The solution of the mystery may lie in the Italian title of Cipolla’s work, Allegro ma non troppo. Fast, but not too fast. Could it be that Mother Nature (or God, whatever your theology) wants to put a brake on things, reduce the speed of progress, slow down the growth of your employer, prevent GDP from an exponential rise so the economy doesn’t overheat? So She created the stupid person acting against both his and the collective interest to do just that?

‘Erudition is the source of universal wisdom: but that does not prevent it from being an occasional cause of misunderstanding between friends.’

The First Basic Law of Human Stupidity asserts without ambiguity that ‘Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.’

One has to keep in mind that according to the Second Basic Law, the fraction σ of the voting population are stupid people and elections offer to all of them at once a magnificent opportunity to harm everybody else without gaining anything from their action.

Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behaviour.

‘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 infallibly turns out to be a costly mistake.’

‘A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.’