Five Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

I really think it does. Case in point: what about emotional benefits? A whole lot of things humans do has no material benefits yet come at considerable cost: vacations, concerts, hobbies.

Are those "stupid"? Presumably not. But if you allow for such non-material benfit, then what if your "stupid" people who are causing harm to others are actually deriving emotional benefits from it?

What it "stickin' it to the libs" makes them happy or feels to them like bringing a little bit of justice to the world?

How about someone who quits his job (losing money) at just the right time to cause his shitty boss huge problems (and a lot more money loss)?

Is that different? Do you really want to judge which emotional benefits are valid and which are not (and thus "stupid")? And call that a "precise definition"?

> By this definition, if you select for attainment of any kind that would be sabotaged by the harm, you had better start seeing less stupidity.

That's kind of the point: you might expect that, and maybe it's true to some extent, but if you think there's some group of people somewhere that has some reliable method of excluding people who act in irrational and self-destructive ways, you're probably going to react the wrong way if you encounter such a person. The usual response is to assume some sort of nefarious plan. Maybe that person is executing a clever strategy to gain some sort of advantage? In actuality that person might not have any plan at all, they're just engaging in ordinary self-destruction and bringing everyone else along for the ride. Not recognizing that is a cognitive blind spot that people who don't do those sorts of things tend to have have.

Cipola does mention that while he considers the proportion of stupid people in circulation to be constant, a properly-functioning society will tend to give less agency to those people than a well-functioning one.

> It 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 I, H1 and B1 and a proportionate increase of populations H2 and B2.

A true "Stupid idiot" in my book would be like someone who keeps going to jail for petty vandalism that they post on their tiktok with only 100 subscribers. Sure, there is plenty of them, but they are not the most dangerous person out there.

The drunk driver who is highly capable has never been in an accident before. He does all kinds of stupid stuff because he is so capable. His reaction time carries him through. His instincts tell him just how far he can push things. Till he goes one step too far and mows down a family. I don't blame stupid, I blame confident.

A programmer is very clever. His code is perfect. The project is in the toilet because it's unmaintainable. But hey, not his fault nobody else can understand his genius code. The few who dig through it have to admit, wow, that's impressive.

The hacker steals the little old ladys life savings with a 0day he found himself. Where's the stupid? He won. He was untracable. He's somewhere on the beach in the Carribean, which is apparently a place people want to be.

The company makes an unsafe drug. The chemist was smart enough to do chemistry. The exec can manage a company. They didn't test well enough. People die. No stupid needed.

The math genius turned philosopher(Ahem... Kaczynski) sees the world through a very objective lens. By a system of principles, he determines tech is the enemy. He kills in the name of this ideology. There aren't many flaws in the reasoning, the only problem is he is forcing his values(Like people having survival goals instead of surrogate goals) on us.

Stupid people can use processes to decouple the results from their own skill and action. A confident person will not, and as such any imperfections they have show. And we all have imperfections.

Would you rather fly with a below average pilot who woul5 call the cops on anyone who doesn't follow the checklist, or the worlds best pilot in terms of basic talent, who doesn't think he needs a checklist and does a few show off dives in the flight just for fun?

I think that's the implication