this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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These are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:

1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
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[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It feels like many in leadership positions display narcissistic tendencies. I am not sure if we currently have adequate accountability for such people. If they are lucky, they benefit and then externalize those costs on society at large

[–] MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Accountability? We've straight up rewarded them for generations. Sociopathy is practically a required trait for climbing the corporate ladder.

[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

Yes, I hope someday our species adopts systems that weed out such people rather than reward them