Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

Tongue-in-cheek, but parts of this ring true: the basic laws 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.
  • 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.
  • A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

I particularly liked the discussion about the ‘perfect bandit’.

via Marginal Revolution

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Comments

One response to “Basic Laws of Human Stupidity”

  1. pariah

    Since non-stupid people are duped by stupid people than non-stupid people must also be stupid.