ZAP // Claude AI
Economist Carlo Cipolla identified four behavioral phenotypes based on whether a person’s actions benefit or harm themselves and others: intelligent, stupid, naive and criminal. The most dangerous people are the “stupid bandits”.
We don’t call people stupid very often.
Unlike its sister concepts, the “silliness” and “idiocy”stupidity is not exactly a personality trait.
Of course we can think someone is stupid, but when we use the word, we tend to limit it to moments of stupidity. We say, “Well, that was stupid” or “You’re being stupid.” Stupidity is an oversight.
In fact, somewhat ironically, stupidity is often defined in contrast to normal, intelligent activities. We say “you’re being stupid” because We hope the person is sensible otherwise., explains the author and philosopher Jonny Thomson in an article on .
The stupidity not linked to IQsuch as foolishness, nor the ability to assess risks, such as being reckless. Stupidity is an actiondefined by its implications. A Nobel Prize-winning professor can be stupid. A five year old can be stupid. We can all be stupid.
But if we do too many stupid things in too short a period of time, people may begin to whisper, “I think he it might even be stupid“.
So here is the “golden law of stupidity” of Carlo Cipolla on how to detect and avoid acts of stupidity.
The golden law of stupidity
Carlo Cipolla was an Italian economist, historian and academic who died at the turn of the millennium. He spent his life study the tides of history: the highs and the lows, the heroic peaks and the terrible falls.
Cipolla looked at the story in broad strokes and socioeconomic nuances. It examined the individuals who came to define a particular historical era. And, after decades of study, he wrote “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity”.
Onion enumerates five laws in your essaybut the central law and self-proclaimed “golden law” of stupidity is Law Number Three:
“A stupid person is a person who causes loss to another person or group of people when it itself does not benefit and may even suffer losses“.
According to Cipolla, stupidity is defined entirely by effects of an action or decision. When he states in his Second Law that “the probability of a person being stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person”, is also saying that stupidity is independent of other intellectual or moral virtues.
Due to this independence, anyone can do something stupid. Almost everyone will do it. That is why, as its first law states, “everyone always and inevitably underestimates the number of stupid people in circulation”.
The four phenotypes
Everything we do leads to one of four results: gives us a benefit, gives us a loss, gives others a benefit, or gives others a loss.
Most actions are small, simple and self-centered. Making myself a coffee or scratching an itch on my left shoulder benefits me, and most people are not affected.
An entire day can pass entirely made up of these small, low-impact actions that Cipolla calls, somewhat cruelly, “ineffective“.
A Cipolla’s theory of stupidity concerns any action that involves two of the outcomes listed above. And if we divide our actions into a series of these pairs, we also arrive at four different types of behavior. These behaviors define four different phenotypes:
- Intelligent
Intelligence is defined by the ability to help both oneself and others.
Example: two friends share a “buy one, get one” promotion at the supermarket. They both get an item they need at a discount. - Idiot
As we have seen, stupidity consists of causing a loss to oneself and others.
Example: the neighbor who, bothered by the noise of children playing in the garden at 3pm (perfectly acceptable time), decides to turn on his music at full volume to “teach his parents a lesson”. - Naive
The naive are those who help others but do not help themselves, underestimating the capacity for evil in others; We can call this “self-sacrifice”. This can be good sometimes, but it can also be taken too far.
Example: the individual who has a group of friends, and he is always the one who organizes dinners, gives lifts to others, is the only one who remembers birthdays… and when he needs help, no one is ever available. - Bandit
Bandits are not just those individuals who rob banks and steal cars; They are all those who help each other and cause a loss to others. The criminal is predictable and rational – he knows he is harming others but he calculates that his gain is worth it.
Example: the individual who arrives at a line of cars on the road and decides to use the right lane (which is for turning) to pass the entire line, and then stands still, forcing entry in front at the last moment.
It goes without saying that We must avoid the bad guys. And in some ways, this is easier than avoiding stupidity: we all know who the troublemakers are. It’s harder to avoid committing stupid acts — no matter how smart we are…
