We have all come across stupid people, they mess things up for you, themselves and others. They say you cannot fix stupid but I wondered if anybody had actually studied stupid people. I discovered a man called Carlo M Cipolla, a highly acclaimed academic,  who wrote an essay in 1976 called The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity.  Here are his five laws:

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.

He went on to chart human stupidity against 2 factors;

• Benefits and losses that an individual causes to him or herself.
• Benefits and losses that an individual causes to others.

Helpless people contribute to society but are taken advantage of by it (and especially by the “bandit” sector of it); note, however, that extreme altruists and pacifists may willingly and consciously (rather than helplessly) accept a place in this category for moral or ethical reasons

Intelligent people contribute to society and who leverage their contributions into reciprocal benefits

Bandits pursue their own self-interest even when doing so poses a net detriment to societal welfare

Stupid people whose efforts are counterproductive to both their and others’ interests

Those who fall exactly in the middle are deemed Ineffectual People

I had a lot of fun recalling people I have met over time and pinning them on the chart.  Where do the people you know fit?