Qualifying for the 3rd Basic Law of Human Stupidity is effortless for some, especially when they talk about the old anthropogenic global warming claptrap aka Climate Change (but not only).

There are five such laws, as we’ll see, but No. 3 is the golden rule, which says:

‘A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while him/herself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.’

That resonates, doesn’t it?

I bring this up for two reasons: one, to insure myself against a tirade when I call those people stupid; I am using the term in the Cipolla sense, recognising these laws as set out by the Italian economic historian Carlo Cipolla in 1976, who died in 2000. He was no slouch, a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the American Philosophical Society. Not stupid on the face of it, although as he points out, intelligence or IQ has nothing to do with the basic laws of stupidity. Stupid people are the ones who harm others and often themselves, while the behaviour of intelligent people is aimed at helping others. You can be intelligent and stupid.

And two, to show that economists can have useful insights into the human condition. This brings me to a specific example, to show Cipolla’s crystal clear insight.

Three short years ago (feels like 30) in 2019, Democrat hopefools (sorry, it’s irresistible) were outbidding each other in climate alarmism. They were egged on by the inexperienced and immature then-29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC to the cognoscenti) who was predicting the end of the world in 12 years. Precisely 12. There are now just nine years left on the AOC Calendar of Extinction. Drink up…

Her proposed solution was to shut down America, from vehicles to cows. America is lucky she will still be a year short of being eligible for the Presidency in 2024, given she is such a media darling. If the mainstream media had not boosted her fame (eg a Time cover) she would have remained a little-known novelty who spouts silly thoughts. ‘Unemployment is low because most people have two jobs.’ ‘More people are concerned about being precisely, factually correct than being morally right.’ That last gem was on 60 Minutes, showing Americans the infantile intellect that characterises the agenda she is espousing for the Democrats.

Capelli gave us an invaluable tool with his Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, for which we are thankful. He detailed these laws in a 40-page booklet to help explain human behaviour in a way that makes perfect sense of the variety of stupidity we encounter on a daily basis, in all walks of life. Below is a summary. As you go through these Laws, your mind may well conjure up names and faces you know personally or from public life. It’s sobering to recognise the reality of the 1st Basic Law:

1st Basic Law:

Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. Stupid people exist, but according to Cipolla you may be deeply underestimating their number and influence in our society. He was so strongly convinced about this that he asserted that ‘any numerical assumption would turn out to be an underestimate’.

2nd Basic Law:

The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. Cipolla considered stupidity as a human characteristic, like having blond hair or blue eyes. Consequently, it is unavoidably distributed roughly equally in all walks of society, regardless of people’s level of education.

3rd Basic Law:

See above. Carlo Cipolla considered this the golden and most important law, never to be forgotten. So I’ll repeat it here: A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while him/herself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

4th Basic Law:

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 infallibly turns out to be a costly mistake. To make this law clearer, Carlo Cipolla added that ‘stupid people are deadly dangerous because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand stupid behaviour’. In such a view, stupid people’s attacks always catch intelligent ones by surprise. This makes it even more difficult to come up with a rational defence. On the other hand, this would be of little use since illogical actions cannot be understood using logic.

5th Basic Law:

A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. The corollary of the Law is that A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit. This law comes as a natural consequence of the fourth basic law. Of the five laws seen so far, this should be the most understandable and reasonable. In fact, common sense tells us that intelligent people, no matter how hostile they may be, are predictable. In contrast, stupid people are not. This subtle difference makes stupid people incredibly more fearsome than intelligent people.

Aware of these Basic Laws, we can better understand why people like Energy Minister Chris Bowen can be called technically stupid (refer 3rd Basic Law), advocating for policies that ‘cause losses to another person or to a group of persons while him/herself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses’. It doesn’t make the policy excusable, but it becomes easier to understand why it is maintained: the Minister’s stupidity.

The cancellation of coal – our major export earner – is part of the overall Net Zero-driven energy policy package. Who will that hurt? Everybody. See the 3rd Basic Law of Stupidity.

Andrew L. Urban is the author of the forthcoming book, Climate Alarm Reality Check – what you haven’t been told (Wilkinson Publishing).

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