In The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (The Mad Millers, 1976), later republished in Italian with the title Allegro ma non troppo (Il Mulino,1988), Carlo Maria Cipolla makes a study of human stupidity which is absolutely ingenious in its simplicity.
According to Cipolla, there are five fundamental laws of stupidity (the boldface is mine):
- Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
- The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.
- A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.
- Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
- A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.
- Benefits and losses that an individual causes to him or herself.
- Benefits and losses that an individual causes to others.
- Intelligent people (top right)
- Helpless / Naive people (top left)
- Bandits (bottom right)
- Stupid people (bottom left)
You can read more about Carlo Maria Cipolla and the Theory of Stupidity here.