These laws have been in existence since times immemorial which is why instead of humankind being love, joy and peace in a beautiful world, we progress paradoxily with wars, unsustainable development which also harms many other species, leading to toxic pollution and climate change, crimes against each other and selfish interests of whole sections of society divided on monetary, religious and many other grounds! With the scourge of Corona and world recession, UNO a helpless organisation bullied by powerful nations it was meant to control, was this the right time for NATO and its allies to confront Russia and trigger further recession and cruel devastation of innocent lives? Paradox because most of the inventions and technology have come from research for and after use in wars.
At the outset is a disclaimer as deeply thought provoking this is not aimed at any nation, political party, or any other group of people or individual since we are all human. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Everyone may have different perceptions and it is absurd to expect what anyone says cannot be misconstrued by someone else. Why are we doing this to ourselves and mother Earth? Don’t we have educative knowledge to act and also understand that to satisfy everyone’s perception is impossible? How can freedom of speech and choice exist if there is no tolerance to celebrate unity in diversity, living under the same sky, each having a different horizon?
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These five laws were reportedly discovered by author Carlo Cipolla an Italian economist and history professor teaching at the University of California propounded in a bestseller translated into 10 languages. The five laws are as under:
1) Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid people in circulation.
2) The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3) A stupid person causes losses to another person or to a group of persons whilst himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
4) Non stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of a stupid individual.
5) A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. And its corollary: A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.
Elaborating, he says Law No. 1 is compounded by the fact that it is based on superficial notions that people are intelligent based on their job, education level or other traits we believe to be exclusive of stupidity. They are not! Considering Law No 2 stupidity is spread across every category one can imagine like stupid college professors, in the UN General Assembly, and in every nation on earth at all levels. It is impossible to say how numerous are the stupid amongst us as almost any guess would violate law No 1? He calls Law No 3 the Golden law of stupidity as it causes problems for others without any clear benefit to themselves. The non stupid are generally inconsistent with actions benefiting both themselves and others, since they sometimes act intelligently and sometimes as selfish bandits benefiting only themselves, and sometimes taken advantage of by others.
The stupid on the other hand are paragons of consistency acting always with unyielding idiocy! This is what makes stupid people so illogically dangerous. As regards Law No 4 the non stupid people can see the rationality of a bandit but find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behaviour. Law No 5 brings the comment that declining societies have the same percentage of stupid people as non stupid but also a high percentage of helpless people, an alarming proliferation of bandits with overtones of stupidity! “Such composition of the non stupid population inevitably strengthens the destructive power of the stupid fraction and makes decline a certainty and the country goes to hell”.
We have this story of Winston Churchill who took a cab to the BBC office for an interview. Asking the driver to wait for 40 minutes was refused as he had to rush back to listen to Churchill’s speech. Without revealing his identity, pleased at the driver’s dedication, he gave him a 10 pound note to which the driver said “I’ll wait till you come back sir and let Churchill go to hell!” Citing this Churchill said “Principles have been modified for money, nations honour sold, families split, friends separated, people killed and made slaves to money.”
Both money and religion have been accused of being the root of all evil! Both have been the source of tremendous good and noble actions and also responsible for triggering the foulest deeds on earth. When we are born into this world as innocent babies, we have our pre programmed genes which will eventually exert their influence together with the parents and socio-religious environmental norms and a lot of circumstances that may decide a person’s or even the fate of the world. (Example if Hilary Clinton’s story about the birth of President Putin as recorded in her book as told to her by him is true). After the rise of Hitler and the holocaust, the end of World War 2, mankind created the UNO and ICJ (both rendered ineffective) vowing such horrors will not be permitted to happen! Look at the state of the world today; humanity in danger, might is right, democracy in doldrums, all nations in turmoil, mankind helplessly behaving like Lemmings, timeless systemic human stupidity?
(The author is a retired naval officer, freelance writer resident in Porvorim)
