Nowadays it seems thatTwo things do not appear to have limits: the universe and human stupidity. But as for the universe... I still have my doubts.
Now, stop and think: Why are the 5 Basic Laws of Human Stupidity so important?
Because recognizing stupidity isn't just an intellectual exercise — it's a matter of survival, a shield against the traps it creates in our society.
Have you ever heard phrases like: "Billionaires have to go!", or "If I don't get it, someone else will get it!"? Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The problem goes far beyond ideologies or opinions. In Brazil, if you return lost money, you are called a muggle. If you refuse to join a scam, you are labeled an idiot. But whoever perpetuates this selfish mentality drags everyone into the same hole.
It's my friends! The reality is only one: stupidity spares no one. It is everywhere, cutting across social classes, professions and cultures.
Carlo M. Cipolla, a visionary historian, charted how this destructive force works in his revolutionary work. And the scariest thing? Stupidity is even more dangerous than evil because it is unpredictable and self-destructive.
For the historian and economist, in his satirical essay published in the book Cheerful but not too much, human stupidity has the unique capacity to cause harm to others without any personal benefit — and, often, causing harm to oneself.
This is due to the fact that human beings can be classified into four main categories based on how their actions affect themselves and others: the Smart: Your actions generate benefits for both yourself and others, even if the gains for others are smaller. The Swindler: This person seeks personal advantage at the expense of other people's losses, exploring and manipulating situations for their own benefit. The Futile: Does not generate significant gains or losses for anyone; their actions are neutral and have no relevant impact. and The Stupid: This is the true villain of the scenario, as his actions result in harm to others, without any gain for himself, and, in many cases, even causing harm to himself.
Cipolla's essay not only highlighted the universality of stupidity, but also came to life on stage, becoming a famous play.
By comparing stupidity with other human behaviors, Cipolla makes us see how it operates on a more destructive level. After all, while malice follows a logic of personal gain, stupidity is chaotic, unpredictable and devoid of any rationality.
With a satirical but grounded tone, Cipolla invites the reader to reflect on how to identify, understand and, most importantly, avoid the devastating impacts of stupidity on our lives and society as a whole.
So if you think you can ignore this problem... it's time to reconsider. Let's find out why stupidity is the biggest enemy we face — and what you can do to avoid falling into its traps.
Stupidity Is Everywhere.
When we look at the futuristic and dystopian society described in Fahrenheit 451, we can see a powerful metaphor for what collective stupidity can do to a society. In this world, the search for instant pleasure has taken over everything. The consumption of art, cinema and literature has been reduced to short, superficial forms filled with vibrant colors, bubblegum sounds and rhythms that please the moment, but leave no room for reflection. The logic was simple: the more fun you had, the happier you would be. There was no longer room for intellectual individuals or differentiation; everyone was equal, everyone had the same fun and everyone was, theoretically, happy.
But this superficial "happiness" came at a high cost. Books were banned, intellectuals were persecuted, universities were closed, and the educational system began to indoctrinate children, from an early age, to follow a model where thinking, questioning, studying or learning became sources of unhappiness. The only mission was to keep everyone moving, with no time to reflect. Culture was impoverished, and people became lost in superficiality.
The most alarming? It was not the government that imposed this regime, but collective stupidity, a social virus of struggles among those considered “minorities” that spread through social media and then into the minds of the population.
The idea was more or less this: “If a child is the most intelligent in the class, he studies beyond the others, reflects and reasons differently, but what about children who are not so smart? How do they feel?
Therefore, if you level down, if you take away the ability to reason and study from intelligent and studious children, then you would have all children on the same level. No know-it-alls at school. This way, everyone is happy and no one feels frustrated. The next step is to eliminate studies of history, language, philosophy and sociology; eliminate intellectuals; and replace these classes with sports competitions, music without content, dance and technical courses. The information underwent a process of dynamization, and is passed on in two sentences, the reading encouraged is comic books.
In one of the most impactful moments, firefighters, previously dedicated to putting out fires, ironically, after the houses became flameproof, were transformed into agents of intellectual destruction, tasked with seizing and burning books.
For society, burning books became an attraction, entertainment; the citizens, in their ignorance, are excited by the idea of seeing a house that hid books being consumed by flames.
It is not uncommon that the few people who still like to read, when discovered, would rather burn to death with their books than live without them.
Family moments are replaced by large halls with four screens that emit rhythmic, vibrant and contentless music, along with frantic images with an explosion of colors. Children are trained to monitor the presence of books in homes.
This story serves as a warning. Stupidity is not limited to professions, social classes or levels of power. It spreads everywhere and affects each of us in ways that we are not always able to realize. What starts as a popular trend, a "fad," can become a cultural pattern that slowly drags everyone into destructive mediocrity.
Look around you: how often do we see public figures, people with power, who end up harming themselves and everyone around them because they are unable to see the reality beyond the surface? It doesn't matter if they are big businessmen, politicians or celebrities. Stupidity is everywhere, and no one is immune. When we give ourselves over to ignorance, empty entertainment and the consumption of shallow ideas, we run the risk of becoming hostages to this collective epidemic.
Let's now take a closer look at The 5 Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
ANDespecially the fourth, which is one of the most impactful: “Do not associate with stupid people, for they will drag you into the abyss.”
This is a law that deserves our attention, as it touches on something very deep and dangerous. The reality is that stupid people don't need evil intent to cause harm. On the contrary, their actions are often driven by pure ignorance or disguised selfishness, but the effect is the same: large-scale destruction.
Does it feel heavy? So, let's illustrate this with a hypothetical story, something that you may have already seen on social media.
Imagine an ambitious, attractive and convincing person who decides to follow an extreme vegan diet, without having adequate professional training on the subject, without adequate guidance, cutting out foods that are essential for health. Over time, you begin to face serious health problems: nutritional deficiencies, loss of muscle mass, constant fatigue.
She decided to turn her own life choice into a rallying cry for a cause, to be a spokesperson, generating a movement that encourages others to follow her extreme diet without understanding the implications for the human body. She gains followers, and her ideas are “rapped” by other social media influencers interested in gaining followers, this chain of movement spreads, until it becomes a personal and product brand, occupying the media, films, music, art... even that little by little this way of life is becoming normal.
But what about the critics? These are demonized, accused of animal slaughter, insensitive, the evil of the earth. Over time, people feel embarrassed about not being part of this extremist vegan idea of being, and start to live in silence in a subservient way.
With the idea that these diets are the true way to live well, these people have now joined political parties, research, built authority and influence, the market, seeing an opportunity, begins to distribute investments and visibility. The stage, as Bourdieu would say, is all set for those who want to speak well about the benefits of extremist veganism. Everything that is contrary is ignored and discredited.
As society does not want to displease or buy into this fight - things start to be normalized and the entire social structure is deconstructed, and those who previously did not follow the diet become marginalized scum.
Now, this movement is starting to gain strength, and more and more people are joining it. They are not aware of the damage they are causing to their own bodies, but in the name of a cause, they continue to promote an idea that is ultimately disastrous. What we see here is not evil, but pure stupidity, enhanced by the media and market interest – the failure to see reality, to consider the consequences and to question whether a personal choice is really helping or harming others.
This example, although simple, gives us a glimpse of how stupidity can spread, turning into something that affects not only individuals themselves, but society as a whole. We can observe the same phenomenon with certain social movements, which end up being built on weak or misinterpreted foundations, but which gain popularity and strength, leading many people to get involved, without really understanding the costs involved.
The reflection here is as follows: the stupid does not need bad intention to cause enormous damage. He just acts irresponsibly, without worrying about the consequences, and in the process, drags others into the abyss. People who follow ideas without reflection or who join causes just for the emotional impact of the moment are becoming part of this destructive cycle.
Now, let's think about public figures, such as incompetent politicians or irresponsible celebrities, who make decisions based on impulses and fads, but who have power and influence over the lives of many people. Your actions, even if they are not intended to cause harm, can have devastating effects. A politician who makes decisions based on popularity rather than technical knowledge, a celebrity who influences thousands to follow a wrong diet or a shallow philosophy, are examples of how stupidity has no borders. It can be anywhere, and when you associate with it, it can become nearly impossible to escape the damage it causes.
Think about the damage that the “tigrinho's game of chance” and betting houses have done to Brazilian family budgets, parents who tried to take their own lives because they lost everything gambling, devastated families, deceived people in search of an easy and quick profit . Inspired by digital influencers who become millionaires at the expense of people's ignorance.
The philosophical concept here is that of "active ignorance", an idea discussed by philosophers such as Socrates and Kant. Socrates defended the idea that "an unquestioned life is not worth living", because conscious ignorance, that which chooses not to question or not to learn, is the fertile ground for stupidity to grow. And, as we see, active ignorance not only harms the individual, but spreads like a virus, reaching others and becoming a collective problem.
The lesson from this video is clear: avoid association with stupidity It is not just a matter of personal preservation, but a matter of social responsibility.
The goal is to make you question yourself and seek information to build critical thinking for yourself.
We cannot allow impulsive and unreflective decisions to drag us into the abyss. Collective stupidity is a powerful force, but it can only prevail if we allow ourselves to be swept away by it.
It is interesting to see how human stupidity, as discussed by Cipolla, directly connects with the psychological phenomenon known as Dunning-Kruger effect. For those unfamiliar, this effect describes the tendency for people with a low level of skill or knowledge on a given subject to overestimate their competence. And don't stupidity and the Dunning-Kruger Effect go hand in hand?
Dunning-Kruger shows us that those who know little, or nothing, about a topic tend to think they know everything. They do not realize that they lack knowledge, and therefore their decisions and opinions are made with excessive confidence. This is exactly what characterizes a stupid person, as Cipolla explains: the inability to see the impact of their actions and the lack of discernment about the seriousness of the situation.
These people, just like those who fall into the Dunning-Kruger, they don't know they don't know, and that is precisely what makes them so dangerous. The malicious person can be defeated because we know how he thinks. The stupid, on the other hand, who acts with unfounded confidence, spreads like a current dragging everyone around.
Now, if stupidity is out there and is as unpredictable as the Dunning-Kruger effect, the question remains: How to react to stupidity?
The most important lesson we can learn is: "We can't eliminate stupidity, but we can reduce its impacts." This does not mean that we should passively accept ignorant and destructive behavior, but rather that the key is how we deal with it.
A practical strategy for this is questioning public speeches, decisions and narratives. It's learning to read different points of view on the subject and being open to dialogue about these topics. By constantly questioning what is imposed, we have the chance to unmask fallacies, misconceptions and irresponsible behaviors before they cause irreparable damage. Never accept the truth without first reflecting on it.
Today it's natural coaching and gurus giving solutions for everything, teaching you how to earn your first million - oops! what am I saying, your first million is no longer in demand, now they teach you how to easily earn your first billion. They, without any knowledge of nutrition, teach you how to lose weight in a week; they promise that they found the altcoin meme coin of the century to make you a billionaire; partisan journalists make stupid correlations between the increase in meat consumption and their new desire to eat eggs; art, culture, music, abandon technical work and decades of study and practice to focus on putting a banana on the wall glued with tape; Soap operas teach that being stupid is funny and attractive - while being smart is boring and despicable; in music, notes that are already proven to be commercial are reused, giving the impression that all the arrangements are similar; the lyrics simply seek to create a loop in people's minds, without much complexity.
These are some examples of commercialized stupidity in today's society, and how it will continue to grow stronger. And this can happen in all sectors of society, whether in government, in companies or even in our personal lives. People who move toward stupidity without intervention increasingly normalize their actions and distort reality to fit their limited beliefs.
I'm throwing a rock into the ocean and hoping someone catches it. If you understood my concern conveyed in this video, if it caused you some discomfort, I am happy, as you are certainly thinking about the subject. This is the best way to reconnect people to the reality of what is happening around them. Seeking knowledge is an act of courage and personal revolution. Because at the end of the day, while many mock and ridicule the search for truth, you are growing. You are going against the current of mediocrity and preparing to become a wiser and more conscious person, capable of dealing with the consequences of a world increasingly full of stupidity.
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