Speedy Parker
Black Hole
[my absentmindedly lachrymatory gazania]
In the 70's an economic historian named Carlo Cipolla wrote anarticle titled "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity. After watching this video I found the article and read it. He also went on to expound on the article by writing short book (75 pages plus an appendix) titled "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity". It is on Amazon for Kindle, Audible, hard cover, or paperback. It seems I had 12 Audible credits and it was available for just 1 credit. I have to go to Las Vegas this weekend so I plan on listening to it on the 3 hour round trip. I also purchased a hard copy for $13.86 which was $3.33 less than the paperback edition (go figure).
The skinny of it are the five following laws:
Everyone underestimates the number of stupid people.
The probability that a person is stupid is independent of any other characteristics.
A stupid person causes losses to others without gains to themselves.
non-stupid people underestimate the danger of the stupid.
Stupid people are the most dangerous people on the planet.
Here is the video which is kind of like a cliff notes of the article.
The full text of the article can be found here in PDF format.
