Worldviews of Forrest Gump and an ancient Roman satirist converge in a seriocomic analysis of human stupidity. The foreword by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is surprisingly disappointing. The author instead melds the acidic satirical spirit of his ancient Roman compatriot Juvenal-who railed against stupidity-with the good cheer of a proto–Forrest Gump, whose version of “actions speak louder than words” was, “Stupid is as stupid does.” The defect or genius of this book-depending on your view-is that, like a Rorschach test, it lets readers project their views onto what they see on the page. These devices should fool no one, however: Cipolla gives no hard data to support his “laws” and no firm definitions of terms such as gains, losses, or irrational. Bandits may have sinister motives, but their actions follow a logic that allows others to predict and defend against them-they act out of a rational self-interest-while the stupid are “erratic and irrational.” The author gives all of this material a quasi-scientific air by calling his theories “laws” and by inserting graphs showing quadrants with X and Y axes, including four worksheets in an appendix that let readers fill in friends’ propensities for certain traits. The stupid gain nothing and may suffer losses as they harm others, and they are therefore the most dangerous. The helpless gain little from their actions, though others may profit the intelligent gain from their actions as others also benefit and the bandits gain as others lose. The author takes a tongue-in-cheek, socio-economic view of human folly in a slim book that divides people into four groups-“the helpless, the intelligent, the bandit, and the stupid”-based on whether they and others gain or lose from their behavior. In a new edition of a self-published 1976 essay, Italian economic historian Cipolla (1922-2000) posits that the most dangerous people are the stupid ones.
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