This is a transcript (literally copy/paste) of a short book written by Carlo M. Cipolla, named "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity". This book impressed me quite much because it have so much truth in it that you cannot deny it, just laugh at it.

It's an excellent essay explaining in 9 chapters how to deal with human stupidity. I read this book many times, to understand all the essence and I would like to be present on SN. So I will start posting each chapter per day for your delight, laughs and reflections.

Human affairs are admittedly in a deplorable state. This, however, is no novelty. As far back as we can see, human affairs have always been in a deplorable state. The heavy load of troubles and miseries that human beings have to bear as individuals as well as members of organized societies is basically a by-product of the most improbable - and I would dare say, stupid - way in which life was set up at its very inception.

After Darwin we know that we share our origin with the lower members of the animal kingdom, and worms as well as elephants have to bear their daily share of trials, predicaments, and ordeals.

Human beings, however, are privileged in so far as they have to bear an extra load - an extra dose of tribulations originated daily by a group of people within the human race itself. This group is much more powerful than the Mafia, or the Military lndustrial Complex, or International Communism - it is an unorganized uncharted group which has no chief, no president, no by-laws and yet manages to operate in perfect unison, as if guided by an invisible hand, in such a way that the activity of each member powerfully contributes to strengthen and amplify the effectiveness of the activity of all other members. The nature, character and behaviour of the members of this group are the subject of the following pages.

Let me point out at this juncture that most emphatically this little book is neither a product of cvnicism nor an exercise in defeatism - no more than a book on microbiology. The following pages are in fact the result of a constructive effort to detect, know and thus possibly neutralize one of the most powerful, dark forces which hinder the growth of human welfare and happiness.

The First Basic Law of Human Stupidity asserts without ambiguity that «Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation»

At first, the statement sounds trivial, vague and horribly ungenerous. Closer scrutiny will however reveal its realistic veracity. No matter how high are one's estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:

a) People whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.

b) Day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one's activities by stupid individuals¹ who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments.

The First Basic Law prevents me from attributing a specific numerical value to the fraction of stupid people within the total population: any numerical estimate would turn out to be an underestimate.

Thus in the following pages I will denote the fraction of stupid people within a population by the symbol.