Posted on

Carlo Cipolla’s 5 Laws of Stupidity

Across the annals of time, an influential factor has impeded the advancement of human well-being and joy. This force wields might surpassing that of the Mafia or the armed forces. Its ramifications resonate on a global scale, spanning from the highest echelons of corporate power to the corners of your neighborhood tavern.

That force is human stupidity. 

Carlo M. Cipolla, noted professor of economic history at the UC Berkeley, wrote an important book – THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY – in order to detect and neutralize its threat. 

Stupidity is a complex problem, for many reasons. Here are Cipolla’s five laws of stupidity:

  1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
  2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
  3. 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.
  4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
  5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

And here’s how Cipolla charted stupidity:

The chart gives us four groups of people:

  • Helpless people contribute to society but are taken advantage of by it
  • Intelligent people contribute to society and leverage their contributions into personal benefits
  • Stupid people are counterproductive to both their and others’ interests
  • Bandits pursue their own self-interest even when this poses a net detriment to societal welfare (most of our billionaires?!)

An additional category of ineffectual people exist at the center of the graph!

What’s really interesting to me is that Cipolla applies his Theory of Stupidity to the rise and fall of Nations.

“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 σ fraction of stupid people. However the country moving uphill also has an unusually high fraction of intelligent people who manage to keep the σ fraction at bay and at the same time produce enough gains for themselves and the other members of the community to make progress a certainty.”

And,

“In a country which is moving downhill, the fraction of stupid people is still equal to σ; however in the remaining population one notices among those in power an alarming proliferation of the bandits with overtones of stupidity (sub-area B1 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 σ fraction and makes decline a certainty. And the country goes to Hell.”

I would add that the stupid Nation is the one that has abandoned the Common Good.

NOTE: Prof. Cipolla retired from UCB in 1991, and died on September 5, 2000, in Pavia, Italy. His heirs have tried to assert control over the text of THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY , but it was released to the public domain, and cannot be retracted.

Posted on

The Common Good versus the Greater Good

The “Common Good” refers to the collective well-being, interests, and benefits of a community. It emphasizes the importance of community values, resources, and goals that contribute to the overall well-being of the community. Decisions and actions that promote the common good are those that consider the needs and rights of all members of the community and seek to create a fair and just society. A city council, for example, allocates funding to improve public infrastructure such as roads, schools, and parks. This benefits all residents of the city and contributes to the common good by enhancing the quality of life for everyone.

In our latest book, we define the 9 domains of the Common Good, tied to the essential freedoms they provide:

The “Greater Good” refers to a perspective that makes decisions and choices that might require sacrifice or compromise on an individual or smaller group level in order to achieve a greater benefit for a larger number of people. The concept of the greater good often involves ethical considerations and the idea that certain actions are justifiable if they lead to significant positive outcomes for a larger portion of society, even if they might negatively impact some individuals or smaller groups.

The problem with the greater good is that the decision-making for the sake of achieving significant positive outcomes – is left to an elite. And this elite may not be serving the interests of the common good.

Authoritarian regimes – both on the extreme left and the extreme right – have used the idea of the “Greater Good” to justify imposing strict controls on society, limiting personal freedoms, and suppressing opposition. This is done in the name of maintaining social order (harmony?!) and achieving national unity. 

Fascism and Communism both focus on nationalism, a strong centralized government and strongman leader, and often promote the supremacy of a particular race or nation. These regimes historically have justified their actions by claiming to pursue the greater good of the nation or the state, often at the expense of individual rights and freedoms. 

Thus, authoritarian ideologies can lead to exclusionary policies that discriminate against certain groups deemed as threats to the nation or its interests. The “Greater Good” might be invoked to justify these policies, claiming that they are necessary for the security and prosperity of the dominant group. Such regimes use propaganda to manipulate public perception and present their actions as necessary for the greater good. This can involve distorting information and suppressing dissent to create a unified narrative that supports the regime’s goals. 

At its worst, interpretations of the “Greater Good” have been used to advance ideas of racial or ethnic superiority, where one group is deemed as inherently superior and entitled to privileges at the expense of others.  It is the rational behind hate-based politics – leading to separation – apartheid, institutional injustice, and genocide.

Don’t get fooled by the Greater Good – or long-termism, another form of greater-goodism.

As we destroy the Common Good, we build a Zero-Trust Society.

Posted on

What the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want you to know

Just because you don’t like Al Gore, doesn’t mean he isn’t telling you the truth:

“…the climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis. The solutions are going to come from a discussion and collaboration about phasing out fossil fuels. And there’s only so much longer they can hold this up and tie us down and keep us from doing the right thing.”

Fight. It’s time to regenerate this world.