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Salute, fans of fucking up someone else's account, an article by a well-known economist about the dangers of idiots and whether it is possible to fight them.
The Italian historian and economist Carlo Cipolla has taken a very thorough approach to the question of the nature of stupidity. Many years of research led the scientist to formulate five universal laws that work in any society. It turned out that stupidity itself is much more dangerous than we used to think about it.
The First Law of Stupidity
A person always underestimates the number of idiots who surround him.
It sounds like a vague platitude and snobbery, but life proves its truth. No matter how you evaluate people, you will constantly encounter the following situations::
A man Who Always Looked smart and Rational Turns Out to be an Incredible Idiot;
Fools keep popping up in the most unexpected places at the most inopportune times to ruin your plans.
The Second Law of Stupidity
The probability that a person is stupid does not depend on his other qualities.
Years of observation and experience have confirmed me in the idea that people are not equal, some are stupid, others are not, and this quality * * * * * * is determined by nature, not cultural factors. A person is a fool just as he is a redhead or has the first blood type. He was born this way by the will of Providence, if you will.
Education has nothing to do with the probability of having a certain number of fools in society. This was confirmed by numerous experiments at universities on five groups: students, office workers, service personnel, administration employees and teachers. When I analyzed a group of low-skilled employees, the number of fools turned out to be more than I expected (the First Law), and I attributed this to social conditions: poverty, segregation, lack of education. But as I moved up the social ladder, I saw the same correlation among white-collar workers and students.
The idea that the Second Law expresses is difficult to accept, but numerous experiments confirm its reinforced concrete correctness. Feminists will support the Second Law, because it says that women are no more stupid than men are stupid. Third-world residents will take comfort in the fact that developed countries are not so developed. The implications of the Second Law are frightening: will you move into British high society, or will you move to Polynesia and make friends with local bounty hunters;
The Third Law of stupidity
A fool is a person whose actions lead to losses for another person or group of people, and at the same time do not benefit the actor himself or even turn out to be harmful to him.
The third law assumes that all people are divided into 4 groups: simpletons (P), clever people (Y), bandits (B) and fools (D).
If Bob takes an action from which he bears losses and at the same time benefits Vasya, then he belongs to the simpletons (zone P).
If Bob does something that benefits both him and Vasya, he is a smart guy because he acted smart (zone Y). If Petya's actions benefit him and Vasya suffers from them, then Petya is a bandit (zone B). And finally, Bob the fool is in zone G, in the negative zone on both axes.
It is not difficult to imagine the extent of the damage that fools can cause by getting into government bodies and having political and social powers. But it is worth clarifying what exactly makes a fool dangerous.
Stupid people are dangerous because rational people can hardly imagine the logic of unreasonable behavior. A smart person is able to understand the logic of a bandit, because the bandit is rational — he just wants to get more benefits and is not smart enough to earn them. The bandit is predictable, so you can build a defense against him. It is impossible to predict the actions of a fool, he will harm you without a reason, without a goal, without a plan, in the most unexpected place, at the most inopportune time. You have no way of knowing when an idiot will strike.
A fool's attack usually takes you by surprise.
Even when an attack becomes obvious, it is difficult to defend against it, because it does not have a rational structure.
This is what Schiller wrote about: "Even the gods are powerless against stupidity."
The Fourth Law of Stupidity
Non-fools always underestimate the destructive potential of fools.
In particular, non-fools constantly forget that dealing with a fool, at any given time, in any place, and under any circumstances, means making a mistake that will cost them dearly in the future.
Simpletons from zone P are usually not able to recognize the danger of fools from zone D, which is not surprising. What is surprising is that fools are also underestimated by clever people and bandits. In the presence of a fool, they relax and enjoy their intellectual superiority, instead of immediately mobilizing and minimizing the damage when the fool does something wrong.
A common stereotype is that a fool only harms himself. Don't confuse fools with helpless simpletons. Never enter into an alliance with fools, thinking that you can use them for your own benefit — if you do, it is obvious that you do not understand the nature of stupidity. So you yourself provide the fool with a field on which he can roam and cause more damage.
The Fifth Law of Stupidity
A fool is the most dangerous type of person.
Consequence:
A fool is more dangerous than a bandit.
The result of the actions of the perfect bandit is a simple transfer of benefits from one person to another. Society as a whole is neither cold nor hot from this. If all the members of this society were perfect bandits, it would quietly rot, but the catastrophe would not have happened. The whole system would be about transferring wealth to those who take action for it, and since the ideal bandits would be everyone, the system would enjoy stability. This can easily be seen in any country where the authorities are corrupt and citizens constantly circumvent the laws.
When fools come on stage, the picture changes completely. They deal damage without profiting. Benefits are being destroyed, society is getting poorer.
History confirms that at any time a country progresses when there are enough smart people in power to restrain active fools and prevent them from destroying what smart people have produced. In a regressing country, there are just as many fools, but there is an increase in the proportion of stupid bandits among the top, and among the rest of the population — naive simpletons. Such a reversal invariably increases the destructive consequences of the actions of fools, and the whole country goes to hell.
The Italian historian and economist Carlo Cipolla has taken a very thorough approach to the question of the nature of stupidity. Many years of research led the scientist to formulate five universal laws that work in any society. It turned out that stupidity itself is much more dangerous than we used to think about it.
The First Law of Stupidity
A person always underestimates the number of idiots who surround him.
It sounds like a vague platitude and snobbery, but life proves its truth. No matter how you evaluate people, you will constantly encounter the following situations::
A man Who Always Looked smart and Rational Turns Out to be an Incredible Idiot;
Fools keep popping up in the most unexpected places at the most inopportune times to ruin your plans.
The Second Law of Stupidity
The probability that a person is stupid does not depend on his other qualities.
Years of observation and experience have confirmed me in the idea that people are not equal, some are stupid, others are not, and this quality * * * * * * is determined by nature, not cultural factors. A person is a fool just as he is a redhead or has the first blood type. He was born this way by the will of Providence, if you will.
Education has nothing to do with the probability of having a certain number of fools in society. This was confirmed by numerous experiments at universities on five groups: students, office workers, service personnel, administration employees and teachers. When I analyzed a group of low-skilled employees, the number of fools turned out to be more than I expected (the First Law), and I attributed this to social conditions: poverty, segregation, lack of education. But as I moved up the social ladder, I saw the same correlation among white-collar workers and students.
The idea that the Second Law expresses is difficult to accept, but numerous experiments confirm its reinforced concrete correctness. Feminists will support the Second Law, because it says that women are no more stupid than men are stupid. Third-world residents will take comfort in the fact that developed countries are not so developed. The implications of the Second Law are frightening: will you move into British high society, or will you move to Polynesia and make friends with local bounty hunters;
The Third Law of stupidity
A fool is a person whose actions lead to losses for another person or group of people, and at the same time do not benefit the actor himself or even turn out to be harmful to him.
The third law assumes that all people are divided into 4 groups: simpletons (P), clever people (Y), bandits (B) and fools (D).
If Bob takes an action from which he bears losses and at the same time benefits Vasya, then he belongs to the simpletons (zone P).
If Bob does something that benefits both him and Vasya, he is a smart guy because he acted smart (zone Y). If Petya's actions benefit him and Vasya suffers from them, then Petya is a bandit (zone B). And finally, Bob the fool is in zone G, in the negative zone on both axes.
It is not difficult to imagine the extent of the damage that fools can cause by getting into government bodies and having political and social powers. But it is worth clarifying what exactly makes a fool dangerous.
Stupid people are dangerous because rational people can hardly imagine the logic of unreasonable behavior. A smart person is able to understand the logic of a bandit, because the bandit is rational — he just wants to get more benefits and is not smart enough to earn them. The bandit is predictable, so you can build a defense against him. It is impossible to predict the actions of a fool, he will harm you without a reason, without a goal, without a plan, in the most unexpected place, at the most inopportune time. You have no way of knowing when an idiot will strike.
A fool's attack usually takes you by surprise.
Even when an attack becomes obvious, it is difficult to defend against it, because it does not have a rational structure.
This is what Schiller wrote about: "Even the gods are powerless against stupidity."
The Fourth Law of Stupidity
Non-fools always underestimate the destructive potential of fools.
In particular, non-fools constantly forget that dealing with a fool, at any given time, in any place, and under any circumstances, means making a mistake that will cost them dearly in the future.
Simpletons from zone P are usually not able to recognize the danger of fools from zone D, which is not surprising. What is surprising is that fools are also underestimated by clever people and bandits. In the presence of a fool, they relax and enjoy their intellectual superiority, instead of immediately mobilizing and minimizing the damage when the fool does something wrong.
A common stereotype is that a fool only harms himself. Don't confuse fools with helpless simpletons. Never enter into an alliance with fools, thinking that you can use them for your own benefit — if you do, it is obvious that you do not understand the nature of stupidity. So you yourself provide the fool with a field on which he can roam and cause more damage.
The Fifth Law of Stupidity
A fool is the most dangerous type of person.
Consequence:
A fool is more dangerous than a bandit.
The result of the actions of the perfect bandit is a simple transfer of benefits from one person to another. Society as a whole is neither cold nor hot from this. If all the members of this society were perfect bandits, it would quietly rot, but the catastrophe would not have happened. The whole system would be about transferring wealth to those who take action for it, and since the ideal bandits would be everyone, the system would enjoy stability. This can easily be seen in any country where the authorities are corrupt and citizens constantly circumvent the laws.
When fools come on stage, the picture changes completely. They deal damage without profiting. Benefits are being destroyed, society is getting poorer.
History confirms that at any time a country progresses when there are enough smart people in power to restrain active fools and prevent them from destroying what smart people have produced. In a regressing country, there are just as many fools, but there is an increase in the proportion of stupid bandits among the top, and among the rest of the population — naive simpletons. Such a reversal invariably increases the destructive consequences of the actions of fools, and the whole country goes to hell.
