Previously:
RECAP of Basic Law of Human stupidity:
- Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
- The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
- A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Chapter 8
The Fourth Basic Law
That helpless people, namely those who in our accounting system fall into the H area, do not normally recognize how dangerous stupid people are, is not at all surprising. Their failure is just another expression of their helplessness. The truly amazing fact, however, is that also intelligent people and bandits often fail to recognize the power to damage inherent in stupidity. lt is extremely difficult to explain why this should happen and one can only remark that when confronted with stupid individuals often intelligent men as well as bandits make the mistake of indulging in feelings of self-complacency and contemptuousness instead of immediately secreting adequate quantities of adrenalin and building up defenses.
One is tempted to believe that a stupid man will only do harm to himself but this is confusing stupidity with helplessness. On occasion one is tempted to associate oneself with a stupid individual in order to use him for one's own schemes.
Such a manoeuvre cannot but have disastrous effects because:
- a) it is based on a complete misunderstanding of the essential nature of stupidity
- b) it gives the stupid person added scope for the exercise of his gifts.
One may hope to outmanoeuvre the stupid and up to a point one may actually do so. But because of the erratic behavior of the stupid, one cannot foresee ail the stupid's actions and reactions and before long one will be pulverized by the unpredictable moves of the stupid partner.
This is clearly summarized in the Fourth Basic Law which states that:
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. ln 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.
Through centuries and millennia, in public as in private life, countless individuals have failed to take account of the Fourth Basic Law and the failure has caused mankind incalculable losses
Chapter 9
Macro Analysis and the Fifth Basic Law
The consideration on which the previous chapter ends is conducive to a macro-type of analysis in which instead of considering the welfare of the individual one considers the welfare of the society, regarded in this context as the algebric sum of the individual conditions. A full understanding of the Fifth Basic Law is essential to the analysis. lt may be parenthetically added here that of the Five.
Basic Laws, the Fifth is certainly the best known and its corollary is quoted very frequently. The Fifth Basic Law states that:
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
The corollary of the Law is that
A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.
The formulation of the Law and its corollary is still of the micro-type. As indicated above, however, the Law and its corollary have far reaching implications of a macro-nature.
The essential point to keep in mind is this: the result of the action of a perfect bandit ( the person who falls on line OM of figure 2) is purely and simply a transfer of wealth and/or welfare.
After the action of a perfect bandit, the bandit has a plus on his account which plus is exactly equivalent to the minus he has caused to another person. The society as a whole is neither better nor worse off. If ail members of a society were perfect bandits the society would remain stagnant but there would be no major disaster.
The whole business would amount to massive transfers of wealth and welfare in favour of those who would take action. If all members of the society would take action in regular turns, not only the society as a whole but also individuals would find themselves in a perfectly steady state of no change.
When stupid people are at work, the story is totally different. Stupid people cause losses to other people with no counterpart of gains on their own account. Thus the society as a whole is impoverished.
The system of accounting which finds expression in the basic graphs shows that while all actions of individuals falling to the right of the line POM (see fig. 3) add to the welfare of a society, although in different degrees, the actions of ail individuals falling to the left of the same line POM cause a deterioration.
ln other words the helpless with overtones of intelligence (area H1), the bandits with overtones of intelligence (area B 1) and ab overall the intelligent ( area /) all con tribute, though in different degrees, to accrue to the welfare of a society. On the other hand the bandits with overtones of stupidity ( are a B 5) and the helpless with overtones of stupidity ( area H 8) manage to add losses to those caused by stupid people thus enhancing the nefarious destructive power of the latter group.
All this suggests some reflection on the performance of societies. According to the Second Basic Law, the fraction of stupid people is a constant Πwhich is not affected by time, space, race, class or any other socio-cultural or historical variable.
lt would be a profound mistake to believe the number of stupid people in a declining society is greater than in a developing society. Both such societies are plagued by the same percentage of stupid people. The difference between the two societies is that in the society which performs poorly:
- a) the stupid members of the society are allowed by the other members to become more active and take more actions;
- b) there is a change in the composition of the non -stupid section with a relative decline of populations of areas /, H1 and B1 and a proportionate increase of populations of area H8 and B8.
This theoretical presumption is abundantly confirmed by an exhaustive analysis of historical cases. ln fact the historical analysis allows us to reformulate the theoretical conclusions in a more factual way and with more realistic detail.
Whether one considers classical, or medieval, or modern or contemporary times one is impressed by the fact that any country moving uphill has its unavoidable Πfraction of stupid people. However the country moving uphill also has an unusually high fraction of intelligent people who manage to keep the Πfraction at bay and at the same time produce enough gains for themselves and the other members of the community to make progress a certainty.
ln a country which is moving downhill, the fraction of stupid people is still equal to Œ; however in the remaining population one notices among those in power an alarming proliferation of the bandits with overtones of stupidity ( sub area B 8 of quadrant B in figure 3) and among those not in power an equally alarming growth in the number of helpless individuals ( area H in basic graph, fig. 1).
Such change in the composition of the non-stupid population inevitably strengthens the destructive power of the Πfraction and makes decline a certainty. And the country goes to Hell.
THE END
I hope you enjoy this funny and quite informative short book.
To end with proof of human stupidity, here it is:
If you want to have this book in electronic format here is a download link (epub and pdf).