this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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“In 1976, a professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley published an essay outlining the fundamental laws of a force he perceived as humanity’s greatest existential threat: Stupidity.
Stupid people, Carlo M. Cipolla explained, share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves, thereby lowering society’s total well-being. There are no defenses against stupidity, argued the Italian-born professor, who died in 2000. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.”
https://qz.com/967554/the-five-universal-laws-of-human-stupidity
The Marching Morons
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm
Thanks a lot for that link. I am a hardcore science fiction nerd, yet I had never crossed paths with that one. Indeed relevant in this debate, too.