Let's Cut the Crap

[NanceGreggs]

Republican voters - especially the Trump-humpers among them -- are not where they are because they're poorly-educated, misled, easily-manipulated dupes.

Those excuses for their behaviour - despite all of it being true - is no longer a viable explanation for their actions.

The truth is they're are just downright stupid.

No one with enough common sense to come in out of the rain would ignore the expertise of Dr. Fauci (world renowned physician, scientist, immunologist), and instead take their medical advice from the same lunatic who told them the pandemic was a hoax.

No one with enough functioning brain cells to enable them to tie their own shoelaces would look at the real-time footage of January 6th and ever believe that it was a 'regular tourist event' - or, even more amazingly, buy the line that the events of January 6th actually never happened.

No one with sufficient brain-power to successfully microwave a hotdog would see deaths among the unvaccinated surge - and not understand that the vaccines are working, and being unvaccinated is the problem.

No one with an IQ above that of the average house plant would believe that the 2020 election was 'stolen' when there hasn't been a modicum of proof produced to support that idea, would believe that a man obsessed with keeping his income tax returns hidden has 'nothing to hide', would believe that TFG (the self-proclaimed billionaire) needs their donations to cover his personal expenses.

These people are actually supporting Republican whack-jobs who believe that Jewish Space Lasers cause forest fires, and the so-called 'Christians' among them have no problem taking selfies with a golden Trump statue.

Once upon a time, the Trump-humpers could be excused as ill-informed idiots who bought the snake oil that would, as promised, cure all ills.

We're well past that now. Anyone still supporting TFG - and the party he still holds sway over - is, quite simply, a fucking moron, devoid of the common sense required to distinguish between shit and Shinola.

So let's stop pretending that those still clinging to TFG's blatant bullshit are citizens who simply don't know any better - because if they don't know better by now, they are too stupid to ever know anything.

[obamanut2012]

1. Or mean

Or both.

I agree with you, Nance.

[secondwind]

2. Nailed it!

[Mister Ed]

3. Some are stupid, some are smart. All are willfully ignorant.

Or, as my friend Charles corrects me: "Not just willfully ignorant, Ed. Joyously, jubilantly ignorant. They revel in their ignorance."

[KarenS]

4. Joyously, jubilantly ignorant and

act like you are a blithering idiot.

I have shut folks out of my life now,,,, it is not just 'for now' I am done with them.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

53. We have all parted ways with friends and family.

[BSdetect]

5. Hatred fuels their stupidity.

[griffi94]

23. Yes it does.

And many of them would rather die than change their minds.
So, many of them are dying.

[leighbythesea2]

91. Agree

Some i know were cranky hateful people to begin with. It all suits their worldview.

[Botany]

6. You forget that Trump and people like him scratch their racist/anti intellectual itches

And damn does that feel good.

[czarjak]

7. The rich and the dumb. Republicans.

[uponit7771]

8. K&R, They're extremely gullible people

[Walleye]

9. I think their IQ dropped 10 points for every year Trump was in office

[soldierant]

72. That would put some of them into negative territory ...

not that that is impossible.

[Walleye]

73. Yes, simple mathematics 🤪

[NNadir]

10. Recognizing as I do, that mass insanity has long been a feature of history...

...I find myself wondering at this time, possibly because of a personal focus on environmental issues, whether there is some neurotoxicology involved, you know the old, "Rome fell because of lead pipes" theory.

This period of insanity may be unprecedented in recent history, at least perhaps going back to the Nazi era in 1930's Germany.

The metals signature of mobile lead and mercury on this planet is disturbing, to me at least, and so I'm wondering about the extent to which "mad hatter disease" (Minamata disease) is involved.

Seriously.

These people are insane as well as stupid.

[multigraincracker]

18. There might be some kind of neurotoxicology in

FOX news viewing too. They all seem to have that in common.

[niyad]

20. To go along with that, I said for decades, "there must be something in the water." Then

The British Water Board said, "there is something in the water. All the pills, all the medicines, etc." (Paraphrasing here). Then studies in this country confirmed those findings. All the psychotropics, all the hormones, all the pharmaceuticals prescribed, ingested, etc. In our water systems.

The lead water pipe theories, the studies of moldy bread leading to mass psychosis. . .Sometimes I think it is a wonder that any of us appear even remotely sane and functional.

[NNadir]

27. In a sense, it's the tip of the iceberg...

A recent issue of Environmental Science and Technology, Volume 55, Issue 14, through which I've spent part of my time this week reviewing, the issue just before the current issue, is about persistent organic pollutants.

In recent years, I've become fascinated with the chemistry of sewage, of all things, and the interplay with "fresh" water supplies.

Metals aside, these organic compounds are quite another issue.

As far as metals go, I note that we are all enthusiastic about lithium in our technology as well. That might turn out badly, in fact, I expect it to do so.

Knowing what I know at a considerable level of detail, I absolutely agree with your comment: It's amazing that anyone is sane.

It's very much the reason I am trying to discuss, as much as possible, the properties of supercritical water and other high temperature fluids, including very hot air with my son before I die. (There is a solution, but no one is interested in embracing it.)

I am terrified at the fates I foresee for his generation. They have their work cut out for them and must solve these problems in the destroyed world we've left for them. It's going to be an incredible challenge.

History will not forgive us; nor should it.

[certainot]

44. it's sex on the wrong brain, which elevates the irrational need for certainty over truth.

prof glenn wilson concluded in the 70s that authoritarians were driven primarily by a fear of uncertainty. in 2003 a look through decades of psychology (Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition) determined similarly, and authoritarianism is sometimes actually measured with the Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI).

clearly authoritarians are more stressed and frightened by uncertainty, unpredictability, doubt etc than liberals. with authoritarians instead of stimulating creativity and curiosity uncertainty stimulates fear.

the sex on the wrong brain theory suggests that irrational extra need for certainty/finality/conclusion is a heritable, mostly 'old world' problem now, but goes back to the earliest stages of human evolution. humans have designed their social and value structures to create certainty and ease that irrational fear of uncertainty and people with a lot of sowb are prone to follow leaders and ideological structures that help them simplify the word to simple black white, right wrong absolutes - to create certainty and ease the fear. that requires massive denial of reality.

limbaugh had so much sowb-generated fear he got very good at lying and rationalizing that denial (covid and global warming are hoaxes, trump is great, trickle-down works etc) for millions. trump has it worse, like hitler and other insane leaders. he creates his own reality as he goes. life is a game of golf - one hole after another ending in certainty. he wants something (money, power, sex), takes out one of his favorite clubs, and denies everything, no matter what the consequences, that doesn't fit into reaching his goal in as few strokes as possible. he has no imagination that might suggest complications and consequences. in his own reality he is king and his royal i'm-never-wrong-certitude in simplifying the scary complicated universe, is what his fascist followers love about him. like fundamentalists in love with their certainty-creating religions.

here's from sex on the wrong brain:

SOWB vs Democracy

Humans evolved with two hands and two brain hemispheres.

The left hand is connected to the right brain hemisphere and the right hand is connected to the left hemisphere. This was thought to be an effective 'design' that helped humans survive, invent and use tools, and advance technologically.

But there was a flaw in that design.

Like the chimpanzees and apes of today, our early ancestors were about 50% right handed and 50% left handed. In the last few million years we became increasingly right handed and for the last 100,000 years or so humans have been about 90% right handed.

Why?

Sex on the wrong brain.

Sowb is caused when right-handed masturbation burns in neural patterns that divert impatient satisfaction-demanding reproductive impulses to brain functions that require patience and objectivity.

In times of conflict sowb symptoms such as fear, suspicion, selfishness, and intolerance could prevail over curiosity, creativity, empathy, and cooperation. Slight variations in brain structure and function that favored particular or general sowb symptoms were inherited and compounded over thousands of generations.

It got worse as populations grew and advanced and it became necessary to delay the age of reproduction. Frustration increased and sex on the wrong brain increased.

Sex on the wrong brain societies developed authoritarian social structures and belief systems that cultivated sowb symptoms for short term survival value and competitive advantage and used sexual repression to increase sowb levels, prevent its diagnosis, and hide the simple cure.

While democratic societies have sometimes been able to reduce sowb-based authoritarianism by suppressing and regulating some of sowb’s negative symptoms, unregulated capitalism and authoritarianism now threaten to destroy Earth.

Regulating sowb symptoms is no longer enough. Humans need to address the root cause of sex on the wrong brain.

[NNadir]

56. This is outside of my area of expertise, but it's amusing that one of the paper's authors is from...

...Stanford, home of the Hoover Institution. He must have tenure.

(My son is considering Ivy's for graduate school, and some non-Ivy's with nuclear engineering/materials science programs. My advice: Don't even think of Stanford, never mind look at it.)

I am not qualified to comment on this theory, but I am well aware of chemical and elemental neurotoxicology. I suspect that there is no single cause for the mass insanity we are now observing, but I speculate that chemoneurotoxicology may be a contributing factor.

It's notable that Ohio has gone "red," as is Indiana. The majority of mercury and lead pollution on the planet right now is coal combustion, historical and current.

I would imagine that a plant without a sulfate scrubber, and even many that have such scrubbers, do not control metal releases, either as aerosols or as ash. Here is a map, as 2011 of coal plants with sulfate scrubbers and without sulfate scrubbers in the United States.



A coincidence perhaps, but maybe not.

[certainot]

62. yuck. i think there are many related factors - such as rw radio dominance, which comes in at

the informational educational propaganda level, and then the way the brain deals with that has more to do with sowb and chemistry.

sowb supercedes environmental factors, going back millions of years selecting for brain structure that may may determine whether a pollutant may stimulate some predisposition for violence, fundamentalism, intolerance, or extremism - which would effect reception of propaganda, for example? or docility, maybe.

yeah, forget stanford......

[Tommymac]

11. Until Fox, Rght Wing radio and Facebook tell the Truth these folks will not GET the FACTS

No access to Truth.

The Disinformation media driven by Authoritarians world wide is to blame.

I don't feel much pity, but these folks DO have a bit of cover for their ignorance.

[Pepsidog]

14. And this is the solution to the problem.

[NanceGreggs]

16. No, there is no 'cover'.

When you're standing in the pouring rain and still believe that the sun is shining, there is no 'cover' for that kind of stupidity.

[Jon King]

12. Someone on MSNBC said it has morphed into a cult over the years.

Forget who it was but they explained how a cult forms and once inside the echo chamber, how people will become unrecognizable from before. Seems the MAGATs are a mixture of life time aholes and formerly half way reasonable people who went completely down the rabbit hole.

I think several factors are at work here to cobble together the MAGAts , a gathering place for lifetime racists and bullies, the ignorant and arrogant....and a measure of a pure cult that millions of formerly half sane people have embraced.

[MiHale]

13. What it sounds like talking to an anti-vaccer...

Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me…

[KS Toronado]

30. You got that right!

[OMGWTF]

61. If they really cared about themselves, they'd get vaccinated. This is a fking tantrum.

[kentuck]

15. You're on a roll this morning, Nance!

[DeeDeeNY]

17. No one can be that stupid. They are willfully ignorant.

It defies logic that 70 million people were stupid enough to vote for that moron. It’s like being in a cult.

[kentuck]

19. Cults don't have to think...

Their Leader does that for them. They are beyond stupid. They are suicidal and a danger to others.

[treestar]

64. Reading and documentaries on Jim Jones

Survivors of Jonestown tried to explain why they followed him. It was like a frog boiling in water, they were drawn in bit by bit. And in a cult, all other information is shut out. Fox viewers do it to themselves, shutting the other information out. Jones' followers did too, but in those days and living together in a remote area, Jones was able to shut out all other information and lie to them about what was going on in the US. I'd think technology would make it impossible, but if you wilfully shut out information, you can be located as remotely in your mind as Jonestown was physically.

[dianaredwing]

69. But he took them to the jungle

to avoid any outside information slipping through. We have much more outside information available now and the leaders of the pubes have no where to go. They (the grossly misinformed) will begin slipping away, in fact, may already have begun to do so, as more negative publicity against the cult surfaces. Sure, some will buckle down and dig in their feet, but most are sheeple and simply lazy and will take the path of least resistance, whatever that is.

[dianaredwing]

68. Once more

Perhaps I am a Pollyanna, but all Republicans are good at is lying and cheating. I will never believe that 7 million Americans actually voted for tfg. If that had been the case, the pubes would have cheated enough more votes to give him the win. What makes sense is that they were able to cheat up to a total of 7 million and that was not enough. I have absolutely no idea how many real Trump voters there are, but I tend to see that most of those who say they are are probably not really voters. Just like they are not football players or Olympians. They watch the action and offer their critique. In other words, they are damn f...ing lazy.

[multigraincracker]

21. I think the crack in their stupid armor is

being laughed at. Drives them more nuts than they already are. Trying to do my part at that.

[ananda]

22. Lol. I wonder if the average house plant is offended..

by the comparison.

[3Hotdogs]

24. Microwaving a hot dog. Heee hee.

Wouldn't the fucker explode on ya?

Now that I let the cat out'a da bag.... Word will get around and on the anniversary of Jan 6, you will see campers parked in front of the Capital with power cords coming out and attached to microwaves and bags of Hebrew National (They answer to a higher power as do right wing fundies.)

[niyad]

40. Depending on the hot dog or link, and frozen or just refrigerated, anywhere from 30

To 60 seconds. I usually wrap in a paper towel.

[ProfessorGAC]

75. The Casing Just Splits

That even happens grilling a hot dog. And, we just had hotdogs! We put them in a cake pan & over cooked them. Same thing!!!
Boiling water on the inside is boiling water on the inside.
The method of heating doesn't really matter.

[Evolve Dammit]

82. 22 seconds in a paper towel. Works like a charm. No need for a higher power (unless you're on 1 or 2

[Richard D]

25. Brilliant! (nt)

[moondust]

26. White identity uber alles!

At this point it probably qualifies as superstupid.

[world wide wally]

28. In a nutshell.

Well said.

[Tadpole Raisin]

29. They love authoritarian regimes as long as their guy is the titular head.

I saw an interview with a republican leader years ago before the Bush/Gore election. He talked about how important it was for The President to have the powers they were talking about. I don’t think it was the type of thing they laughingly switch sides on depending who is in power

But the interviewer asked if these were powers that a President Gore should have if he won. The guy was taken aback but his face recoiled, like it would be a terrible thing, before he recovered and gave a pablum answer.

They do not get it that when we talk about checks and balances we mean it - whoever is President. They just want power and control and ANYTHING is fair game.

That they are willing to let people die for their political ends with willing followers is both stupid and evil!

[Rustyeye77]

31. As someone who has lived in the South

They already hate the north so youre not going to reach them by calling them "poorly-educated, misled, easily-manipulated dupes."

If we are so smart we should be able to reach them on their level.

[dianaredwing]

70. I too live in the South

At this point, what is the point? They are poorly-educated, misled, and easily manipulated dupes but this is not a matter of smart but a matter of toddler definance to any kind of discipline. Do you give him/her a time out, do you punish bad behavior, or do you say, 'because I say so. I am the adult."?

[PatrickforB]

32. Righteous rant, Nance. I have seen the acronym TFG numerous times,

and it took me a bit to figure out it means 'the former guy.'

But, yeah, all your points on here are well taken. Think about Orwell and 1984. Double think and newspeak. The people who are trying to erase critical race theory from our kids' textbooks, the 'christians' who are trying to force my grandchildren to learn about creationism in their science classes, the covid deniers, the climate change deniers.

All that was built straight from the 1971 Powell Manifesto, and the death of the old Fairness Doctrine. I hear arguments on here about how that wouldn't work now because it only covered the airways and not cable, but maybe we could impose another one and extend it to cable when it comes to news.

I knew this was going to get bad the first time the odious Kellyann Conway talked about 'alternative facts.'

Alternative facts? Otherwise known as blatant lies.

Nope, you got it right. The smarter ones definitely KNOW what they are doing. But many of the ones we call stupid are acting that way because of the likes of Hannity, Fox and Friends, and AM hate-talk radio hosts. If that is all you hear, then that is what you know.

[niyad]

45. Agree with almost all, but our kids are not being taught critical race theory. Actually,

they are not being taught much of anything these days. The anti-intellectualism that I have seen growing since I was in junior high (back in the Dark Ages) has been growing more pronounced, more vociferously vocal, daily. I knew we were in serious trouble when some idiot in chimpy's illegitimate reign said that outsourcing our jobs was good for the economy.

Sadly, it is only getting worse.

[PatrickforB]

63. You have a good point, Niyad.

The textbooks my kids had 15 years ago were really watered down.

The ones I had in high school in the way-back-when were watered down, too, but not quite so much.

You know, I didn't really 'get it' until I read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States in college. And, boy oh boy, when I did, I totally freaked out, because my grandpa was a Republican in the 70s (he'd been a union organizer back in the 30s and in the 40s, he attended Truman's inauguration, but his second wife, I think, changed his mind). My dad was a Reagan Republican to the max.

So when I got to college, that was my general outlook. OMG, exposure to the actual facts, and to things like Marxist theory, just blew me away. I freaked.

But once you KNOW, you can't ever really go back, can you? That was what happened to me. I learned all this new stuff, and dug into it and found out those things were true, and it changed me into (gasp!) a liberal. Interesting, I did not know about the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, and Rosewood in 1923, not to mention all the others on that long list until embarassingly recently.

I didn't 'get' white privilege until maybe 10 or 15 years ago.

And I had suppressed my awareness of the genocide we perpetrated against Native Americans.

My own ignorance continually amazes me.

[calimary]

96. I remember hearing that miserable harpie say that. "Alternative facts."

And I remember thinking - "WTF? 'Alternative Facts'???? What? You don't like the REAL facts so you need a different version to make yourself feel better or smarter or something-er?"

[dlk]

33. Propaganda works

Putin’s psy ops, designed to create chaos, are working.

[Midnight Writer]

34. Exactly. This is more about psychological vulnerability than just stupidity.

There are a lot of very smart people who have been exploited by cults and fanaticism.

[dlk]

36. Yes, we are experiencing a massive mental health crisis

It has a variety of causes and is being exploited in numerous corners for political gain. It’s devastating,

[not fooled]

42. +++++++++++++++++++

And, unfortunately, turns out there's fertile soil here for that type of thing.

Too bad for those of us who are not credulous and value democracy.

[dlk]

78. It can be discouraging to realize the level of ignorance & hatred born of that ignorance

all around us. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. However, I believe this country is worth fighting for, no matter what we’re up against.

[treestar]

80. We don't like it, yet we are often said not to have good messaging

Would having good messaging have to mean resorting to this type of thing?

[dlk]

93. I'm not a messaging expert

George Lakota wrote “The Little Blue Book” about messaging. I highly recommend it.

[NCjack]

35. You can't educate the unwilling. They have the right to continue their death march.

But, we are not prohibited from offering and giving them bottles of waters.

[dlk]

37. True, there is a strong streak of cultivated ignorance running through our country

And we are all paying a very high price for it.

[Warpy]

38. You left out what finally convinced me

These are people who are sending a poormouthing billionaire money they can't afford to.

Anybody who sends a billionaire money for nothing in return , not even warm fuzzies, is stupid.

[relayerbob]

39. I partially disagree

Yes, they are morons. However, they are also racist, intolerant assholes whose white privilege is being threatened, and whose prejudices and ignorance are being validated daily by the assholes they choose to follow and worship.

[FoxNewsSucks]

41. In way too many cases, they're also

bigoted, racist, asshole bullies.

[CCExile]

43. I go as far as to say...

Give vaccines for 30 more days, with boosters to the already vaccinated when they become available. Then stop ALL vaccinations for 6 months. Let the herd thin, with no hospital admissions for the unvaccinated, and home isolation for the unvaccinated. Then resume vaccinations for those who are left, but only for a month or so, then repeat.

We have too many idiots for a viable democracy. Thin the herd. Stop screwing around.

[Traildogbob]

46. Excellent.

Stoooooooooopid. And proud to be.

[Beachnutt]

47. And that includes my whole damn anti vaxx

trump worshipping family and 95% of people I thought were my friends.
You are 100% right but damn it hurts to think they are all risking their very lives and totally totally refuse to acknowledge facts and truth.
MY WHOLE FAMILY, My kids, my siblings my nephews and nieces, my friends from work and they're union Teamsters.
EVERYBODY, so is it me or are they really that damn stupid.
It's really a scary situation, will they all contract delta covid ?
My youngest daughter is 25 years old and pregnant with twins, I lovingly try to explain to her how important the vaccine is and she just flat out tells me no I won't get vaccinated.
All 4 of my daughters think I am stupid and am a brainwashed liberal.
This damn world has gone crazy.

[Old Crank]

48. Preach Brother Preach!!!!

[IronLionZion]

49. It's all of the above

some of them are easily manipulated, stupid, don't know any better, etc. Some are malicious and hateful. Trump's campaign had many similarities to other strongmen who took authoritarian power by blaming things on minorities, using war language to justify the unjustifiable, and bring out the worst in people.

Biden talked about that even back in 2016. Trump appeals to the worst qualities in people. Hillary/Dems appeal to the best qualities in people.

[Mysterian]

50. I think they're stupid because of poor parenting,

crappy schools, imbecile "culture," and religion.

[seta1950]

51. They aren't I'll informed

They just don’t care about anyone, who thinks differently from them, that’s it, ‘ my way or the highway’

[Maine Abu El Banat]

52. Sometimes an asshole

Is just an asshole. And most trump humpers I have met are assholes.

[praxEs]

54. It is important to acknowledge that...

fully half of folks in the US sport below average IQ's!

Moreover, during the Vietnam War in the 1960's, Defense Secretary McNamara (and President Johnson) lowered dramatically the Armed Forces Qualification Test that tapped IQ intellectual functioning test score threshold required for induction. The initiative was named Project 100,000, although 354,000 men ended up 'joining' the program. These inductees attained scores between the 10th and 30th percentiles on the roughly normal distribution of all scores attained at that time.

One of many negative consequences for those called McNamara's Morons was that they were more than three times more likely to end up dead compared to those who attained scores that surpassed the prior threshold.

On the one hand, I believe that these men earned our highest level of respect and gratitude. On the other, I wonder what portion of human legacy of their military service is represented among the public facing Trumpistos.

We all have seen documented reports indicating that lots of these current gangsters and their fellow travelers are plenty capable of thinking their way out of a paper bag.

Although we are now appropriately celebrating Johnson's leadership around passing Kennedy's civil rights act, there is little question that he was a stone cold killer.

[pandr32]

55. I have to say you took the words right out of my mouth

At least it sounds awfully similar.

[dalton99a]

57. Kick

[Atticus]

58. Hadn't heard that "shit from Shinola" quip in quite a while! That we ould explain the state

of their shoes.

( For the younger folks, "Shinola" was a popular brand of shoe polish in the day.)

[bluewater]

59. K&R

[samplegirl]

60. They are not stupid

and they would vote for anything with a R after their name!

[FrankTC]

65. Agree/Disagree

Excellent post — focused and articulate. But there is an alternative hypothesis: They’re not stupid (or not only stupid), they’re evil. It’s the old conundrum: mad or bad. Personally I think it’s a combination of both, with the two qualities potentiating each other — the stupid hindering the appreciation of the harmful consequences of the evil for themselves and their loved ones, and the evil promoting joy at the harmful consequences of their stupidity on everyone else. Vile and stupid Trump people.

[11 Bravo]

66. Thanks for this, Nance. Until we all get locked down on the fact that those dipshits ...

are too fucking irredeemably stupid to figure it out, we're fighting the wrong battle.
K&R!

[randr]

67. They pretend it is all about defending their freedoms

In reality it is about defending their privileges.
They could not even tell you the difference between Freedoms, Rights, or Privileges.
Not to mention the word "responsibility" which goes with them all.

[Habitation]

71. Five Universal Laws of Human Stupidity (via another DU'r)

The Five Universal Laws of Human Stupidity

We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril.

They are not just a danger to themselves.

In 1976, a professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley published an essay outlining the fundamental laws of a force he perceived as humanity’s greatest existential threat: Stupidity.

Stupid people, Carlo M. Cipolla explained, share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves, thereby lowering society’s total well-being. There are no defenses against stupidity, argued the Italian-born professor, who died in 2000. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.

Let’s take a look at Cipolla’s five basic laws of human stupidity:

Law 1: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

No matter how many idiots you suspect yourself surrounded by, Cipolla wrote, you are invariably lowballing the total. This problem is compounded by biased assumptions that certain people are intelligent based on superficial factors like their job, education level, or other traits we believe to be exclusive of stupidity. They aren’t. Which takes us to:

Law 2: The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

Cipolla posits stupidity is a variable that remains constant across all populations. Every category one can imagine—gender, race, nationality, education level, income—possesses a fixed percentage of stupid people. There are stupid college professors. There are stupid people at Davos and at the UN General Assembly. There are stupid people in every nation on earth. How numerous are the stupid amongst us? It’s impossible to say. And any guess would almost certainly violate the first law, anyway.

Law 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.

Cipolla called this one the Golden Law of stupidity. A stupid person, according to the economist, is one who causes problems for others without any clear benefit to himself.

The uncle unable to stop himself from posting fake news articles to Facebook? Stupid. The customer service representative who keeps you on the phone for an hour, hangs up on you twice, and somehow still manages to screw up your account? Stupid.

This law also introduces three other phenotypes that Cipolla says coexist alongside stupidity. First there is the intelligent person, whose actions benefit both himself and others. Then there is the bandit, who benefits himself at others’ expense. And lastly there is the helpless person, whose actions enrich others at his own expense. Cipolla imagined the four types along a graph, like this:



a chart of ineffectual people from helpless people to bandits - Stupidity, graphed.

The non-stupid are a flawed and inconsistent bunch. Sometimes we act intelligently, sometimes we are selfish bandits, sometimes we act helplessly and are taken advantage of by others, and sometimes we’re a bit of both. The stupid, in comparison, are paragons of consistency, acting at all times with unyielding idiocy.

However, consistent stupidity is the only consistent thing about the stupid. This is what makes stupid people so dangerous. Cipolla explains:

Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behavior. An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit’s actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality. The bandit wants a plus on his account. Since he is not intelligent enough to devise ways of obtaining the plus as well as providing you with a plus, he will produce his plus by causing a minus to appear on your account. All this is bad, but it is rational and if you are rational you can predict it. You can foresee a bandit’s actions, his nasty maneuvers and ugly aspirations and often can build up your defenses.

With a stupid person all this is absolutely impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy.

All of which leads us to:

Law 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 or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril. This brings us to the fifth and final law:

Law 5: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

And its corollary:

A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

We can do nothing about the stupid. The difference between societies that collapse under the weight of their stupid citizens and those who transcend them are the makeup of the non-stupid. Those progressing in spite of their stupid possess a high proportion of people acting intelligently, those who counterbalance the stupid’s losses by bringing about gains for themselves and their fellows.

Declining societies have the same percentage of stupid people as successful ones. But they also have high percentages of helpless people and, Cipolla writes, “an alarming proliferation of the bandits with overtones of stupidity.”

“Such change in the composition of the non-stupid population inevitably strengthens the destructive power of the [stupid] fraction and makes decline a certainty,” Cipolla concludes. “And the country goes to Hell.”

Corinne Purtill writes about culture, behavioral science, and management. Based at various times in Washington, D.C., Phnom Penh, New York, and London, she has written about everything from terrorism to the search for the Loch Ness Monster. She has a BA in English from Stanford University and reports now from southern California.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-five-universal-laws-of-human-stupidity
http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/

There is genius at work in this thesis. It came roundabout by way of reader Sam Keen, who sent to the UK a thin gray monograph printed anonymously in mid-1986 in Bologna, Italy. The trail eventually led to Carlo M. Cipolla, the author, who was Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley but, alas died in 2000 and left behind a bunch of (half-american) offsprings... who promptly tried to scrap money out of everything he had written, even if -as in the case of this small text- clearly earmarked and STATED by the Author in its 1986 version as intended for the public domain (and yes, stated again in 1992, despite having re-published this text in 1988, slightly modified, in his "Allegro ma non troppo" copyrighted collection).

This copy comes from Whole Earth Review (Spring 1987 pp 2 - 7) and is anyway easy to find all over the web and/or on any web archive facility à la "wayback machine".

There isn't of course, nor cannot be, any valid patent or bogus "copyright" on this work that Professor Cipolla personally WANTED to have in the public domain and incidentally BECAUSE OF ITS VERY OPEN SPREADING is the only one that has made -and still makes- him famous all over the web.

We firmly believe that this belongs into any reality cracker's quiver, and that the best onor to the Author and the best chance that anyone will "buy" his other texts (frankly also equally easy to find in many "grey" areas of Internet, but way less interesting) is to allow this nice little essay to be spread around as originally clearly intended by Professor Cipolla himself.

[Mickju]

77. Love it!

[treestar]

81. Interesting stuff

Helps understand, at least, why they vote against their own interests. They don't know what their own interests even are.

[Skittles]

74. PREACH IT, SISTER

I APPROVE OF THIS MESSAGE.

[SammyWinstonJack]

76. They're just assholes.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

79. TFG SUPPORTERS ARE STUPID

[Calista241]

83. White people are getting vaccinated at higher rates than almost all other races in the US.

Older white people, often the most conservative Trump voters, have some of the highest vaccination rates, especially in Florida. But across the US, White people received a higher share of vaccinations compared to their share of cases in most states reporting data.

We like to accuse Trump / Republican voters of being complete idiots, and they can be; but the data doesn’t support the fact that all / most of these deaths are conservative Republican white people.

[Brother Mythos]

84. Agreed.

[The Wizard]

85. Willful ignorance and

feigned outrage have been at the core of Republican political strategy since the inception of Pox News. Everything changes once the lying starts. Lying causes more lying, kind of like a contagion. Anyone refusing the vaccine without good cause should have their medical insurance revoked and then be tied to an ice floe. Enough is enough.
Pox News brain poisoning is literally killing people, and they should be named in a class action lawsuit for damages and wrongful death. But asking Pox News viewers and trumpanzees to go against their religion is a tall order. The Pope of poison still holds sway over the poorly educated and bigots. I've seen Pox sycophants go into a trance while watching Murdoch's masterful distortion of information. It's getting time to watch "Last Week Tonight" for real news .

[Blue Owl]

86. K&R

[Jakes Progress]

87. Stupid is the word we have to use. But

we need a better one.

The word has too many personal associations and meanings to so many people. This is not a casual condition. Stupid is chronic and perhaps genetic. Here are two discussions of the word:

[link:https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/8/8/2044523/-On-Stupidity-Why-Some-of-the-Smartest-People-Can-be-so-Very-Stupid|

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/apr/09/improbable-research-human-stupidity|

[TheAnnoyedAgnostic]

88. I still think it's aggressive ignorance

I see plenty of otherwise smart people believing in their ignorance. But I also think conservative media validates their us/vs them mentality and fears.

[Tribetime]

89. I agree 100% can we add they are assholes too

[El Shaman]

90. Thank You Nancy.

I like your style. May I send this one to my Facebook friends-and in Spanish??
Have a nice:'Love in the Time of Delta'
Mho
P.S. it will be many , many moons before this is over. I may not be around.
Take Care~

[NoMoreRepugs]

92. My sentiments exactly. That is why I use the words

Goober and Gomer when describing a Deplorable - u simply have to be a moron to believe anything the RePutinicans say.

[spanone]

94. K&R...

[The Jungle 1]

95. The stupidity is stunning

That said how do I understand the leadership who pushes them along.
Stupid is stupid but what leadership does is inhuman.
The republican party is willingly convincing people not to get vaccines. They know they are killing Americans.
Plus leadership is getting vaccinated.

[scarytomcat]

97. or they support the racist position

and want to hold power and control to keep minorities down and out