How Stupid Are We All?

Forty years ago while at Berkeley I had the privilege to do graduate research for Carlo Cipolla, an Italian economist, Professor of Economics, sadly long-gone from among us.

Unusually bright and supremely-original Carlo was mostly a perfect and patient gentleman, an accomplished conversationalist taking his mentoring very seriously. To these days I remember fondly our chats, occasional dinners and most important his economic analysis of the societal costs of Stupidity.

(Unrelated to my today’s ramblings is his short “Faith, Reason, and the Plague in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany”, a mandatory read these days, next to Laurie Garrett’s prescient 1994 “The Coming Plague”, the book Bill Gates so much wishes he had written)

Carlo’s musings about stupid people open a new-angle into this COVID-19 brouhaha of ours and also into the grander workings of society. Below is an attempted summary of his analysis, an edit of mine off Wikipedia, on top of faded memories.

Carlo divides us into four categories, depending on the benefits and losses we each cause to ourselves and to others. His analysis is strictly economic. Extending it to other realms, as I am doing here with unwarranted abandon is for entertainment-only. No apologies, Linkedin is after all home of Harvard Business Review and their Six Steps, Nine Categories, Twelve Mistakes and so forth in foxtrot cadence ad infinitum.

A possible way to conceptualize Carlo’s categorization is: behavioral hypostases we each take at various times, with various probabilities.

1. The Intelligent reap deserved rewards for their great contributions to society; these are our prominent philosophers, scientists, inventors, engineers, writer and artists – and soon to come doctors and nurses. Think Angela Merker.
2. The Bandits pursue relentlessly their own self-interest, fully aware of their actions being detrimental to society at large. The cynical view is “politicians”, the clinical view is “psychopaths”. How much the two overlap is a matter of incandescent debate. Think Elon Musk.
3. The Helpless contribute to society; in response society takes advantage of them; I know the first thought is “taxpayers!” but this is only because we tend to underestimate the benefits of government programs. In fact these are the exploited. “Unskilled workers” and “illegal immigrants” spring to mind.
4. The Stupid take actions which are counterproductive to both their and others' interests. Smoking, casual unprotected sex and anti-vaxxers all qualify. Most of the time Stupids are unknowingly stupid. But there are times a Non-Stupid will turn Stupid on purpose. Resentful of my role in the economy I may vote on purpose for a Wreaking Ball to ruin society for all, me included. These folks certainly feel bit Helpless as well. Think Qanon.

We can now pile categories 1-2 into the set of "Non-Stupids" and neatly stand it in contrast to the previously defined set of "Stupids". After setting up the framework, Carlo follows up with a series of observations:

• The probability that a person is a Stupid is independent of any other of his characteristics. as in: you devoted mild-mannered mom joins Qanon.
• Always and inevitably Non-Stupids underestimate: the number of Stupids, their damaging-power and the penalty of repeatedly-dealing with them. Obama assuring the world that we'll never elect Trump.
• Stupids are the most dangerous kind; more so than Bandits. Albeit an amorphous group Stupids are more powerful than highly-structured and disciplined organizations such as the Mafia and the military-industrial complex. Example: folks almost wreaking our democracy for good while believing to be saving it, on the 6th of January.

Carlo’s implied policies are simple: strengthen education and law-enforcement; and fight alienation. Nobody will ever argue against them.

Yet in practice our failure to agree on the exact way to do so harms not only ourselves but the entire society as well.

Which begs the question: are we all Stupid?