It comes from an article written by Carlo M. Cipolla in the 1970s. He puts forward five laws.
- Everyone underestimates the number of stupid people around you. It means people often get carried away by what they see from outside – education, race, eloquence etc.
- The probability of a person being stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. In other words, stupidity is uncorrelated with gender, nationality, wealth or education.
- The stupid person causes losses to others while deriving no gain and possibly incurring losses.
- Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals.
- A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person
Cipolla built a 2 x 2 matrix to explain rule number 3.
