The x-axis goes from “Damage to Self” to “Benefit to Self”. Thus, Cipolla’s classification applies to people as well as actions, see chart below: However, Cipolla states that while people do not act consistently intelligent or stupid, one can plot the weighted average of their decisions over time. Thus, an individual can take intelligent as well as stupid actions.
An intelligent action benefits others as well as the individual. A stupid action harms the individual as well as others. Initially, Cipolla places the determination of intelligence or stupidity at the level of individual actions, as opposed to individual people. (v) “A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person”, including a corollary “A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.” (iv) “Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals…”, and (iii) “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”, (ii) “The probability that a certain person will be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person”, (i) “Always and inevitably every one underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation”, In the paper, he presents five basic laws of human stupidity: (1987), Whole Earth Review: Access to Tools and Ideas, No 54 Spring 1987, POINT, pp2-7 The original essay, written in Italian and likely published in 1976, leads to an English version published in 1987: Cipolla (1922-2000), an Italian professor of economic history, wrote a paper entitled “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity”.
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