Cipolla’s 5 Laws of Human Stupidity

"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." - George Carlin

Never git into an argument with a stupid person They’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience —-Mark Twain

"Some people are born stupid, some achieve stupidity, and some have stupidity thrust upon them." William Shakespeare.

I think a lot of stupidity is actually caused by formed habits and social interactions. If your ideas are not challenged (especially in groups) as a child you'll never develop the habit of doubt. Doubt causes people to double check and expand their knowledge to related topics in order to make sure they are correct.

Everyone does stupid things. But the smart ones learn from their mistakes and apply that knowledge to future actions.

A great example of this in society are celebrities and athletes. People assume they are intelligent just because they are famous or rich. While they might be smart at their skills in their career, people follow their advice on things they might actually be stupid in such as politics. The dangerous part is these stupid people can influence millions of people in a democracy and create bad laws that impacts everyone.

Stupidity and Intelligence is not about IQ, it's about net good/harm done. That's the most eye-opening things I have ever witnessed when I first learn of this.

You can definitely learn a ”nothing matters” attitude, which will hugely contribute to actually doing stupid things. In these four classes of people, the stupid are the irrational actors who do things without considering the consequences.

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason, is like administering medicine to the dead." - Thomas Paine

This is the single most useful piece of sociology you will ever learn. Notice there is no reference to race, gender, religion, politics, or any other divisiveness.

To paraphrase an old saying: while genius has limits stupidity knows no bounds.

If ppl know they're stupid, that automatically make them not stupid. I can't deal with friends that are proven stupid by actions, it is very frustrating.

The second seems like the most important lesson. It's so easy to think "Oh, that guy's a doctor/congressman/any kind of "expert," they must know what they're talking about," but that's not always the case. You'd think their stupidity would keep them from getting anywhere near those kinds of jobs, but all they really have to do is slip by unnoticed for long enough. Hell, with nepotism at play, too many idiots have a fast-track to positions they're not qualified for.

I worked at a McDonald's as a Crew Trainer for far too long in my teenage years. Within a few weeks, I had my own motto that I still rely on to this day "Never rely on the intelligence of other people".

As a person who has been studying neurological development and psychology for more than 40 years, I'm familiar with the type. I think that stupid people don't know they're stupid. Helpless people know they're helpless. Intelligent people know they're intelligent. Even Bandit people know they're selfish or inconsiderate of others, and if you ask them if they're narcissists or sociopaths, they'll happily admit that they are. But stupid people don't know they're stupid. What's worse is that you can't convince a stupid person that they're stupid, and they will go out of their way to NOT listen to intelligent people and insist on doing things their own way even with other people telling them the harm that will happen, and sometimes even to prove that no harm will happen to themselves, just because they're stupid. Stubbornness is a form of stupidity. And stupidity is not a lack of intelligence, but rather an insistence on doing things their own way, ESPECIALLY if people try to tell them to do things a different way. They don't read instruction manuals. They don't listen to the instructions that other people give them. They think they know enough to do things without those things. The more people try to hold them to following instructions, the more stubbornly they'll buckle down to resist. If it's not their idea, they reject it as though it is some sort of slight against themselves. I think that people with choleric personalities often fall into the stupidity category, and that it's more to do with unconscious influences on personality than on anything conscious. They can't control it, they can't change it, and they can't be taught to fix it. It can't be changed through psychological means. Somehow, society is going to have to come up with some other medical treatment to fix stupidity, because you can't change them through education or counseling or through negative punishments. The thing about stupidity is that it forms over time. Stupid people don't start out as stupid babies. They develop along the same stages that other babies develop. Stupidity really starts to show itself around the age of puberty when the brain begins to pare out excess pathways. And somehow, their brains pare out the wrong pathways. I don't know if it's because they have screwed up sex hormones, or because they have screwed up genes or what. But Stupid people tend to run in families, so it has to have some sort of genetic component, or it is taught through role modeling somehow, and it appeals to their particular inherited temperament. I do think that we won't make any progress at fixing the problem if we continue to label them as stupid people, because they will be offended by that label. And one last thing to note: stupid people don't always have bad luck. Stupid people aren't always impoverished failures. Sometimes stupid people can have incredibly good luck and be quite successful. One of the things that makes people so resistant to change is that they have good luck so much of the time. And they think that proves they're not stupid people. They may be completely unaware of how often other people bail them out. Or may assume that other people bailing them out is just their due right. And kind people often bale stupid people out because we all make mistakes, and it's just the nice thing to do, right? Except that it enables stupid people to continue to behave in stupid ways. The fact that stupid people aren't always total losers makes it especially hard to convince a stupid person that they're stupid. It can also make them difficult to spot, and make a lot of other people fall victim to them.

The difference between genius and stupidity is that the genius have limits. -Some smart dude

Social media certainly makes it clear to me when someone has no idea how dangerously stupid they are.

Truth is that people move between these 4 roles depending on the situation. If you think you don't dip your toes into stupidity, helplessness, or banditry, you're not being honest about yourself.

I think stupidity is a potential we all realise sometimes, some more than others. Guard against your own stupidity.

This video makes me shrink in my chair. My biggest fear is my own stupidity. I try to laugh at it, but it's that desperate quivering laughter on the verge of tears. I made the mistake of getting educated later in life which had the effect of placing the idiocy of my younger adulthood on clear and bright display. I could open a museum of human stupidity full of exhibits from my 20s through my 40s. I can even break it down into categories: macho stupidity, rock and roll stupidity, drug and alcohol stupidity, FINANCIAL STUPIDITY, philosophical stupidity, fashion stupidity, automobile stupidity, romantic and sexual stupidity, dietary stupidity, hairstyle stupidity, employment stupidity...it's a vast and wonderful rainbow. Even as I type this, I am engaging in egregious automobile stupidity...it's a special sub-genre.