In his witty and informative Introduction, Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses the scientific basis of stupidity and confirms much of what Carlo M. Cipolla asserts about human stupidity.
The First Basic Law says: “Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.” We found that out in the last Presidential Election. And during the Pandemic! Later in his slim little book, Cipolla defines a stupid person as a person who causes losses to another person or a group of persons while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses to themselves.
While I agree with Cipolla, I have to admit I have done some stupid things in my Life. Not to go into too much detail, but I was naive as a kid and there were times I was misled into stupid actions because I didn’t know any better. Later in Life, I fell prey to believing people who lied to me and that resulted in me making stupid mistakes because I trusted them.
There are consistently stupid people and there are people like me who occasionally do stupid things. I’m sure you know people who fall into both categories. In the May 2022 issue of The Atlantic, Jonathan Haidt in “After Babel,” shows how social media dissolved the mortar of our society and made America stupid. The future looks grim. GRADE: B
OT re The Band:
Has anyone seen this movie or was it already discussed here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Were_Brothers:_Robbie_Robertson_and_the_Band
It’s director, Canadian Daniel Roher, has just made a movie on the Russian journalist Alexei Navalny who was poisoned, survived and then sent to jail
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/apr/23/alexei-navalny-documentary-film
Wolf, I saw ONCE WERE BROTHERS and reviewed it on this blog: http://georgekelley.org/once-were-brothers/
We’re all guilty of doing stupid things…occasionally. It’s the “aggressive, harmful-to-others, lack of self-awareness, and refusal to acknowledge that they did something stupid and learn from it and try to do better in the future” type of stupidity that is destroying our country today. It’s really more than that–it’s the inability of the people doing the harmfully-stupid things to even recognize that they’re doing stupid things that is dooming all of us.
Deb, politicians and religious “leaders” manipulate gullible people into believing masks are evil, vaccines are dangerous (or don’t work), and LGBQ people don’t deserve rights. Social media is making people stupid through fake news and misinformation. And, it’s getting worse.
George, I think it’s more willful stupidity that’s being exploited, and this was grossly true long before there was a world-wide web. Ronald Reagan was not elected by an informed electorate, nor was Jimmy Carter, nor was any number of previous nor subsequent folks at more local levels. A lot of people have always felt that they should be catered to (particularly if wealthy) and are full of resentment (not always unjustified, particularly if deprived). The world/civilization is always ready to fall apart, because there are too many who are quite sure that only they matter…and this isn’t new nor is it localized.
This looks interesting but I doubt that I’ll get to it. If I can get through ten pages of THE ATLANTIC’s sub-microscopic print I will try to get to the Haidt piece and another long article about our post-Roe future. Is it just me, or does the print in THE ATLANTIC get smaller with each issue?
Somehow I’ve mostly avoided any significant entanglement with social media except for a six month addiction to Twitter that I gave up after I realized what a time suck it had become. I don’t even have an active Facebook account. Maybe I’m safe for now, but the loathsome Margery Taylor Greene is only 80 miles away.
Michael, I’m with you on the font used by THE ATLANTIC. Don’t those editors realize that their readership is aging and would prefer LARGE PRINT? Margery Taylor Greene manipulates the Media to bring in more donations to feed her political activities. She isn’t in Congress to accomplish any legislative goals, she’s there to make money and get on FOX to grow her support network. Margery Taylor Greene is not stupid…but she makes other people do stupid things.
She doesn’t Make them. They choose to see her as their champion. They are stupid, after all. Ask (even) Liz Cheney.
THE ATLANTIC would prefer if you read their electronic format, anyway.
“Hey, you made a mistake. You fucked up! You trusted us.”
–Eric Stratton, Faber College ’62
Yes, it seems unlikely, but there does seem to be a lot more stupid people out there today, or perhaps there are just more, “Yes, I’m stupid ad I’m proud of it and what are you going to do about it, Brandon?” people. Either way, we’re screwed.
If it’s humorous, I might read it, but if it’s depressing, no thanks.
Jeff, THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY is more humorous than depressing. It’s a quick read.
Does he speculate on whether we are becoming more stupid over time? Does the complexity of this tech age require more intelligence than earlier societies did? It certainly feels that way. I spent a lot of lunch yesterday discussing how often attempts to scam us are taking place. All of us have fallen victims to such attempts recently. I am not even sure intelligence would protect us.
Patti–there may be no one scam that will trick everyone but each of us is vulnerable to a particular scam. If I thought my kids were in danger, I’d probably sign over my life savings without thinking about it. My sister–normally a very savvy woman–got hacked when she trusted a phone call from “Microsoft” that there was a problem with her computer and allowed the “technician” to walk her through putting malware on her computer. A friend purchased a bunch of Walmart gift cards thinking they were going to be placed on her incarcerated son’s commissary account (afterwards she said she was so worried that her son wouldn’t have any food that she didn’t think through what she was being told to do). We’re all vulnerable to something that will shut down our critical-thinking skills. Scammers don’t need all of us to fall for a scam, they just need enough of us to fall that it makes it profitable for them to continue to do what they do. Robocalls and on-line bots make it easy for scammers to just sit back and wait for someone to take the bait. I remember during the last census we kept getting phone calls supposedly from the Census Bureau asking us to call them back because “they had a few more questions” about our responses. I never did call them back, but I can imagine a lot of people did…and got fleeced in the process.
Deb, many of us are genetically inclined to believe people. It took me a long time to overcome my instinct to trust everyone and become more skeptical about what I was being told. The media tools available to scammers today result in billions of dollars of ill-gotten gains for con-artists.
Patti, social media gives the unscrupulous manipulators a whole new bag of tools to convince unwary people to believe misinformation and conspiracy theories. There would be no QAnon if FACEBOOK wasn’t around. We receive scamming phone calls and emails every day. And, millions of people fall for them.
QAnon is simply the John Birch Society and Willis Carto’s activities made even more ridiculous…and, to be sure, more easily disseminated. George Wallace didn’t do as well as he did because there was no means of spreading convenient disinformation in ’68…nor Nixon/Agnew, for that matter.
Todd, millions of people bought into the QAnon conspiracy theories. They still believe that stuff today even though it’s been thoroughly debunked.
I remain suspicious to a fault, large because I was aware of all the cons and snake oil being peddled and shared from my childhood in the early ’70s onward.
I remember getting faxes from the “Nigeria connection” many years ago – a prince wanted me to help him get his money to a European bank etc
It was almost funny.
Right now there are lots of discussions on Spams and Scams everywhere like the US soldier who is in love with a German girl but needs some money to get to Germany. And of course it works the other way too. You see a picture of a good looking young woman and she writes that she is in love with you and wants to live with you, so please send her money for a ticket …
Happened to a German guy (60 years old) I met in Hungary but when he told me the story it was already too late, the money was gone. Crazy!
The most popular scam is a grandchild calling grandmother that he/she urgently need some money because of an accident or whatever. It just happened here in the village In Hungary. Though it was “only” around 1000 $ that was a lot for a poor old pensioner which gets around 300 $ pension a month.
Of course there are more clever ideas – but someone you don’t know wanting to give you money should ring an alarm immediately, I don’t get it.
Wolf, our home phone rings constantly with robo-calls from scammers who claim to be from AMAZON or MICROSOFT but want your private information before they will “help” you. The unwary get fleeced by these malevolent forces!
And, George, they are using a very old technology to attempt that fleecing!
Todd, the techniques con-artists use are ancient, but the technology like social media just makes it more powerful.
Hell, the present looks grim! But as dumb as I am I’m not dumb enough to waste money on this book or spend time reading it!