Bandits (bottom right), who pursue their own self-interest even when doing so poses a net detriment to societal welfare.

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Carlo M. Cipolla

11

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

This explores the controversial subject of stupidity. Stupid people are seen as a group, more powerful by far than major organizations such as the Mafia and the industrial complex, which without regulations, leaders or manifesto nonetheless manages to operate to great effect and with incredible coordination. by Carlo M. Cipolla

Stupidity

People

Smart

Human behaviour

Get

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Law #1 Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

Carlo M. Cipolla

Law #2 The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

Carlo M. Cipolla

Law #3 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.

Carlo M. Cipolla

Law #4 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.

Carlo M. Cipolla

Law #5 A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Carlo M. Cipolla

A stupid person is more dangerous than a pillager.

Carlo M. Cipolla

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Two factors are important to consider when exploring human behaviour: Benefits and losses that an individual causes to: 1. him or herself and 2. to others.

Torsten Caspar

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Intelligent people (top right), who contribute to society and who leverage their contributions into reciprocal benefits.

Carlo M. Cipolla

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Helpless people (top left), who contribute to society but are taken advantage of by it (and especially by the "bandit" sector of it); note, however, that extreme altruists and pacifists may willingly and consciously (rather than helplessly) accept a place in this category for moral or ethical reasons.

Carlo M. Cipolla

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Stupid people (bottom left), whose efforts are counterproductive to both their and others' interests.

Carlo M. Cipolla

The Internet has made us richer, freer, connected and informed in ways its founders could not have dreamt of. It has also become a vector of attack, espionage, crime and harm.

George Osborne

I think filmmaking is a strange animal because it's anti-Democratic and collective at the same time, but I think it's all about not trying to know everything better than everybody else but making the right choices.

Niels Arden Oplev

Trust not too much to appearances.

Virgil

We see women who go out and want to look like Jennifer Aniston, and they're wearing an ill-fitting red dress and ugly gold shoes, and they've got flat hair and they can't walk.

Kelly Cutrone

As Peter Bogdanovich would say of Paper Moon: Ryan's wonderful in it, and he sat there and watched the kid steal the picture.

Tatum O'Neal

Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.

John Ciardi

For years, I've thought about a project or a way where I could do acting and music together, and I never really thought that would happen. Then 'Nashville' came along, and it was like a dream come true to marry both of those worlds.

Jonathan Jackson

When cheese gets its picture taken what does it say

George Carlin

I don't think piracy is going to kill the music industry. But digital technology and the ability to download will change the packaging from CDs to a single-based business.

Richard Parsons

I should confess that I'm woefully under-read in South African fiction.

Damon Galgut

All the movies that I make in some ways have to be the story of my life. There are different chapters in my life.

Jodie Foster

After I arrived in Basel, I initially attempted to continue the project of my days in Dulbecco's laboratory, namely, the transcriptional control of the simian virus 40 genes.

Susumu Tonegawa

A spa hotel Its like a normal hotel only in reception theres a picture of a pebble.

Rhod Gilbert

Almost every magazine piece I've ever written, I felt like I haven't done it justice, like it was just a gloss.

Jon Krakauer

Promotions are the worst part of making a movie. We are actors and not salesmen. Still, you have to go to so many places to try and sell the movie.

Ranbir Kapoor

I think, as a woman and as somebody in the entertainment industry, we have to be careful what we're putting out there and what we're trying to say.

Jenny Mollen

I was kind of the black sheep with the Disney kids. I was uninterested in making friends with most of them. I didn't really fall into 'the Disney mold.' I was more or less the kid hanging out with the crew members and got along with them far better.

Adam Lamberg

Because I now realize, after all this time, I have never truly felt worthy of all that I have been given.

Wynonna Judd

If nobody trusts you as president, then you can't get anything done.

Robert Dallek

'Analyze This' is a good movie because Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal are really good. But without the material to put on the play, of course, they couldn't be good. For me, it starts with the writing. I always think that the writer is doing the vast majority of the director's work, in a sense.

Harold Ramis

Those who've been rescued from sin are best able to help in the rescue of others

Mrvin Williams

Cute is one of those words people use when they know youre smart enough to realize youve got so much personality means youre ugly.

Elizabeth Scott

Almost everyone's instinct is to be overconfident and read way too much into a hot or cold streak.

Nate Silver

I live in a cabin in Santa Cruz.

Nell Newman