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Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

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Re: Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

#41

Post by du_bing »

jondubois wrote: post #33
kdamken wrote: post #15

What makes a person stupid? If I have a friend who squanders their money while I save and build up wealth, are they stupid? What if they have a much happier and more fulfilling life than I do? If you have a difficult job (like brain surgeon), but are terrible at most of the other parts of your life, does that make you stupid? Are slow readers stupid? What if they invent a product or start a business that makes them a…

I thought this article was written by Nassim Taleb initially but it sounded too harsh even for him. Like the author of this article, Taleb also discusses stupid people in several of his books... Often drawing attention to "the educated idiot" which is basically a person who is highly educated, knows a lot of stuff and who is perhaps productive or successful in society but they get caught up in social thinking trends…

Is it true that the article is written by Taleb? Where do you get the information?

Re: Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

#42

Post by treerock »

srrge wrote: post #34
Sniffnoy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll let Sarah Constantin make this argument for me: https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2017/06/27/in-defense-of-... :)

I think individualism is a respectable philosophy. Thank you for sharing this article. I think however that a reasonable person would also consider that social policies may have great benefits for herself as an individual. For example: - If stupids don't have access to war weapons, maybe it will be more difficult for them to mass murder ME. - If the stupids have to vaccinate and can get healthcare, maybe they won't s…

I would question the last one. Stupid people with an education can cause havoc.

Possibly related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord#Cl...

Re: Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

#43

Post by jaclaz »

IndrekR wrote: post #20
dang wrote: post #10

Does anybody have a year for it? I went with 2009 via https://web.archive.org/web/20090601000000*/http://www.zoon.... but it feels like it might be older, especially as the author had been dead for 9 years. Edit: a comment (now deleted) helpfully pointed out the Whole Earth Review, Spring 1987 reference at the bottom. Thanks! Previously: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Basic%20Laws%20of%20Human%20St... . Interesting an…

Wikipedia page of the author [1] claims it was circulated among the friends in 1976 (English) and published in 1988 (Italian). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_M._Cipolla

Yes, it is a "classic", and actually the linked to online version (with the illustrations) is (besides being not complete) somehow much worse (IMHO) than the original, which is a very plain booklet where the cartesian diagrams are less distracting, here it is (from archive.org), the PDF is an actual scan of the booklet:

https://archive.org/details/The_Basic_Laws_of_Human_Stupidit...

More history about the Author and the book is here: http://gandalf.it/stupid/cipoleng.htm

Re: Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

#44

Post by srrge »

treerock wrote: post #42
srrge wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think individualism is a respectable philosophy. Thank you for sharing this article. I think however that a reasonable person would also consider that social policies may have great benefits for herself as an individual. For example: - If stupids don't have access to war weapons, maybe it will be more difficult for them to mass murder ME. - If the stupids have to vaccinate and can get healthcare, maybe they won't s…

I would question the last one. Stupid people with an education can cause havoc. Possibly related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord#Cl...

Interesting though, thank you.

So we have to invent a universal income targeted at stupid people. Like a "Please stay idle" type income :)

Re: Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

#46

Post by kierenj »

scandox wrote: post #40

I have never met a stupid person. Unwise, thoughtless, ignorant, uncouth, vain, angry - yes. Stupid no. I have never met someone I believed I could not make understand something, if I articulated it in the right way. I never met someone who, if confronted with a wrong action was intellectually incapable of understanding what was wrong: emotionally yes, but not intellectually. I think stupid is just an inaccurate term…

Really, truly? The interesting question to me is then: why not? Or how? There are many individuals on the planet who, through no fault of their own, have severely limited mental capacity. You've never met one?

Re: Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

#47

Post by scandox »

kierenj wrote: post #46
scandox wrote: post #40

I have never met a stupid person. Unwise, thoughtless, ignorant, uncouth, vain, angry - yes. Stupid no. I have never met someone I believed I could not make understand something, if I articulated it in the right way. I never met someone who, if confronted with a wrong action was intellectually incapable of understanding what was wrong: emotionally yes, but not intellectually. I think stupid is just an inaccurate term…

Really, truly? The interesting question to me is then: why not? Or how? There are many individuals on the planet who, through no fault of their own, have severely limited mental capacity. You've never met one?

I have met people with mental disability, who would have had significant limits on their intellectual capabilities, but I didn't consider them stupid.

If it helps to clarify: I can't explain relational databases to someone who doesn't have basic numeracy and you can't explain (say) quantum mechanics to me and the hyper-intelligent aliens can't explain ?$%>$£DDDD to you...but none of us in that chain are stupid. And all of us with sufficient power of articulation can convey the elements of those things to each other that matter to the person within their context.

Re: Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

#48

Post by nine_k »

alain_gilbert wrote: post #17
kdamken wrote: post #15

What makes a person stupid? If I have a friend who squanders their money while I save and build up wealth, are they stupid? What if they have a much happier and more fulfilling life than I do? If you have a difficult job (like brain surgeon), but are terrible at most of the other parts of your life, does that make you stupid? Are slow readers stupid? What if they invent a product or start a business that makes them a…

From the text: "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." I think all of your examples give the person some gain, or causes good to others.

This looks like a hint on a whole possible matrix:

- Personal gain, others' gain: "good businessman".

- Personal gain, others' loss: "evil".

- Personal loss, others' gain: "benefactor" / "saint".

- Personal loss, others' loss: "stupid".

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