
The five universal laws of human stupidity - awl130
https://qz.com/967554/the-five-universal-laws-of-human-stupidity/
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theonemind
[http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-
stupidit...](http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/)

The article doesn't have much substance besides long quotes from the original,
and the original reads better.

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jaclaz
Actually even the given article is not really-really the "original" (the
illustrations by Donnelly were added for the publication in Whole Earth Review
(Spring 1987), and the article misses a few paragraphs, the small preface by
"Mad Millers" and the tiny, but useful "Appendix") the actual book, "The Basic
Laws of Human Stupidity", written in the early '70's was originally published
in 1976 in a very limited number of copies (for friends and colleagues only)
and it was only published (in Italian as "Allegro ma non troppo" in 1988) and
the original English one in 2011 (the Author M.Cipola died in 2000).

The 2011 "original" version is on archive.org:
[https://archive.org/details/The_Basic_Laws_of_Human_Stupidit...](https://archive.org/details/The_Basic_Laws_of_Human_Stupidity_by_Carlo_M._Cipolla)

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WheelsAtLarge
Law 2 is specially right. Stupid appears in every segment of society. And
stupid never knows they are stupid.

I would say one can be a genius in one part but totally clueless in another.
IQ doesn't guarantee you a free ride.

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CM30
>I would say one can be a genius in one part but totally clueless in another.
IQ doesn't guarantee you a free ride.

This is the cause behind so many quacks and pseudoscientists.

For example, most of the 'scientists' that creationists like to say agree with
their ideas just coincidentally happen to have their degrees in subjects other
than biology:

[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lists_of_creationist_scientists...](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lists_of_creationist_scientists#List)

Also, a lot of others that end up going from a non medicine related field to
peddling questionable cancer 'cures' and homeopathy.

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SpikeDad
You can add meteorologist to the list of scientists that think they understand
Global climate change.

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oxplot
On a related topic, competence, I have come to realise over time that I and
many people I know have a bias towards people in professions they don't know
much about, believing that most of them are good at their jobs. Reality is
that as the case with general population, majority are incompetent, careless,
and well, downright stupid. Be it doctors with a decade long
training/education, plumbers, lawyers, programmers, etc.

~~~
beagle3
Surgeon's law[0] applies to people too.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law)

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squozzer
"We can do nothing about the stupid." Sure we can --
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_\(nerve_agent\))

