Never Underestimate the Harmful Potential of Stupid People

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former. — Albert Einstein

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. Euripides

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it. — Stephen Vizinczey

Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. — Unknown, Hanlon’s Razor

These are Cipolla’s five fundamental laws of stupidity:

1.Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

2.The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.

3.A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.

4.Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.

5.A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.

Signs of stupidity:

Intolerance, arrogance, impoliteness, rudeness, crassness, name calling, lack of imagination, lack of source, driven by opinions, use of hearsay, use of logical fallacies, belief in mob intelligence and knowing not that they know not.

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