The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carlo M. Cipolla

Author:Carlo M. Cipolla
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Politics, Economics, Humor, Business, History
ISBN: 9788815233813
Publisher: Il Mulino
Published: 2011-03-14T11:00:00+00:00

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2 Notice the qualification «a fellow took an action». The fact he took the action is decisive in establishing that he is helpless. If I took the action which resulted in my gain and his loss, then the judgement would be different: I would be a bandit.

Chapter V

Frequency Distribution

Most people do not act consistently. Under certain circumstances a given person acts intelligently and under different circumstances the same person will act helplessly. The only important exception to the rule is represented by the stupid people who normally show a strong proclivity toward perfect consistency in all fields of human endeavours.

From all that proceeds, it does not follow that we can chart on the basic graph only stupid individuals. We can calculate for each person his weighted average position in the plane of Figure 3 quite independently from his degree of inconsistency. A helpless person may occasionally behave intelligently and on occasion he may perform a bandit’s action. But since the person in question is fundamentally helpless most of his action will have the characteristics of helplessness. Thus the overall weighted average position of all the actions of such a person will place him in the H quadrant of the basic graph.

The fact that it is possible to place on the graph individuals instead of their actions allows some digression about the frequency of the bandit and stupid types.

The perfect bandit is one who, with his actions, causes to other individuals losses equal to his gains. The crudest type of banditry is theft. A person who robs you of 100 pounds without causing you an extra loss or harm is a perfect bandit: you lose 100 pounds, he gains 100 pounds. In the basic graph the perfect bandits would appear on a 45-degree diagonal line that divides the area B into two perfectly symmetrical sub-areas (line OM of Figure 5).

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