The Five Laws of Human Stupidity – 2023 Edition

Are they still valid 50 years later?

I didn’t write these laws; They were initially developed by Carlo Cipolla (1922-2000), a University of California professor of economic history. He first proposed his theory of stupidity in his somewhat satirical book, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity. In the book, Cipolla details how stupid people are the most dangerous people on the planet and how we all underestimate the danger and impact that stupid people have on everyone else.

Since his book was published nearly 50 years ago, it’s worth reviewing what a 2023 version of his laws might look like.

Before we begin, it’s best to define the word stupid as not knowing the truth and not wanting to know the truth, but acting as if they do know the truth. (Please understand that this does not include people who, by accident of birth or otherwise, are legitimately mentally disabled.)

Law 1: Always and inevitably, each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in the world.

The fact that there are stupid people in the world is a given. However, Cipolla was convinced that we seriously underestimate their number and influence in society. He wrote, “any numerical estimate would prove to be an underestimate”.

Look how many Americans have fallen for global warming and critical race theory scams. Consider how many people are deceived by government agencies about vaccine safety. And think about how many people have been conned by the Democrat Party into voting for them repeatedly, despite the fact they do nothing except destroy everything they touch.

Law #1 may have been more valid when Cipolla wrote it. But, in 2023, with the advent of computerized election data, we can now make an educated guess of the number of stupid people. We can do this simply by looking at the number of Democrat voters and individuals who believe there was no fraud in the last two American elections.

Law 2: The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of the same person.

Cipolla was convinced that stupidity was another characteristic, like blond hair or blue eyes. He held that it’s distributed in all circles of society in a more or less similar proportion regardless of educational level.

The educational system in the United States now churns out stupid and entitled people by the millions.

Last year, the average graduation rate for Chicago public high schools was only 77%. Of those, only 25% were proficient in reading and math. That means fewer than 20% of students entering Chicago’s high schools leave without learning these necessary life skills.

 Even worse, a recent survey shows that 33% of high schools in Baltimore had ZERO students proficient in math. Another six schools had only 1% of their students tested as proficient in math.

The foolishness is by no means limited to high schools. According to a recent course catalog description (Source), Harvard Medical School students can now learn how to provide healthcare to “infants” who are LGBTQIA+.

Really?

LGBTQ infants?

Babies can barely hold their heads up, much less know their gender.

The longer people stay in the education system, with very few exceptions, the more stupid they become. These students seemingly don’t know or don’t want to know. This makes them easily manipulated by equally stupid leftists.

Leave them alone; they are blind guides of blind people. And if a person who is blind guides another who is blind, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

Regarding Law #2, Cipolla’s theory breaks down in 2023.

Law 3: A stupid person is one who causes harm to another person or group without at the same time obtaining a benefit for himself or even damaging himself.

Cipolla didn’t consider stupidity a matter of intellectual quotient but rather a lack of relational intelligence. He started from the idea that by relating to each other, we can obtain benefits for ourselves and for others or, on the contrary, cause harm to ourselves and others. A stupid person harms others and himself as well.

If we fall into the trap of thinking that a stupid person can only hurt himself and that we’re immune to his actions, it only serves to lower our defenses against them.

The Democrat Party and groups like Black Lives Matter demand “reparations” for ancient slavery that occurred in the distant past and do little or nothing to help the people who are now actually enslaved. Slavery still exists today in places like the Sahel Belt of Africa, China, and Pakistan. Believing that reparations and looting are justifiable is even more stupid, as more people are victims of slavery in 2023 than were in 1619. (Michael Brown does an excellent job of reporting on this here, Rightful Freedom Substack.)

In 2020, Black Lives Matter protesters vandalized Boston’s 54th Regiment Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The monument commemorates black lives dedicated (and sacrificed) to the struggle against slavery. It was defaced with profane anti-police graffiti in response to George Floyd’s death.

What exactly did they gain from that?

Law #3 seems to be even more true today than when it was written...

Law 4: Non-stupid people always underestimate the destructive potential of stupid people.

According to Cipolla, we continually underestimate the danger that stupid people represent. He says, “Stupid people are dangerous and unfortunate because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand stupid behavior.”

Mounting evidence shows the so-called safe COVID shots are a public health catastrophe (See my January 14th post). The latest evidence shows the shots are causing fatal myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), destroying immune systems, and triggering spikes in cancers. Unheard of 2 years ago, sudden death syndrome is now the number one cause of death for Americans under age 65. Hardly a day goes by without reading or hearing about someone else who suddenly dropped dead. Sudden death rates are off the charts for the vaccinated vs. unvaccinated for those over and under 65.

But, yet on December 13th, the State of California ordered a statewide mask requirement amid “rising Coronavirus cases”.

Continuing the stupidity, on December 14th, Yosemite National Park in California reinstated its indoor mask mandate, citing an increased COVID-19 spread. The national park announced on Friday that masking would be required for individuals entering federal buildings or public transportation within Yosemite National Park.

Don’t they look at the data that proves masks don’t work?

In 2023, law #4 very much still holds true...

Law 5: The stupid person is the most dangerous person that exists.

 Cipolla wrote, “All human beings are included in four fundamental categories: the naive, the intelligent, the evil and the stupid […] The intelligent person knows that he’s intelligent. The evil ones are aware they are evil. The naive are painfully imbued with the sense of their own candor. Unlike all these other characters, the stupid person doesn’t know themselves to be stupid. This contributes to giving greater strength, incidence, and effectiveness to his devastating action. The stupid person is not inhibited by self-consciousness”.

Last week, House Democrats claimed the Born-Alive Act would endanger the life of an infant who survived a botched abortion. One Democrat congressman argued, “The problem with this bill is not that it provides any new protection for infants. The problem with this bill is that it endangers some infants by stating that that infant must immediately be brought to the hospital where in any other circumstance, that might be the right thing to do for the health and survival of that infant, or it may not.” How incredibly stupid must a person be to believe a newborn bleeding to death would be harmed by proper and swift medical care?

Fortunately, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act passed by a 220-210 vote, with only one House Democrat from Texas voting for it.

Blogger Steve Harrison sums it up like this... “Stupid people now have a voice, and they flaunt it. They rejoice in their stupidity. They revel in their ignorance. They frolic in their idiocy. They have come out and achieved equality and, in some cases, dominance.”

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hosea 4:6 ESV)

Like it or not, law #5 still applies today.

My question for you, dear reader, is this... when does willful stupidity cross the line into wickedness?

Please comment below to opine...