Laws of Human Stupidity Cheat Sheet

I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two charac­ter­istics are combined. Some are clever and diligent - their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy, they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intell­ectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent - he must not be entrusted with any respon­sib­ility because he will always cause only mischief

A study offers a scientific answer.
Balázs Aczél, a psychology professor at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest is a co-author of a study, Aczél and his colleagues gathered 180 pieces of writing from the news, blog sites, and social media deemed as "­­st­u­p­id­­"

Resear­­chers noticed 3 different types of behaviors most often deemed as stupid.
Their statis­­tical analysis of the data found that people regard stupid action in three different catego­­ries:

(1) not mainta­­ining a balance between confidence and abilities
(2) failures of attention
(3) lack of control

Examples of the 3 catego­ries:

1. Overco­nfi­dence
Aczél term is "­con­fident ignora­nce­," when someone is overco­nfident about their ability to do something. A driver refuses to ask for direct­ions, and end up lost.
2. Lack of control
On a diet but buys cookies in the grocery store "just in case."
3. Absent­-mi­nde­dness
Your mind is wandering or thinking in other thing. Crash!!!

Resear­chers noted that more is needed to determine how much of their findings are influenced by culture and shared expect­ations.

The level of observed stupidity was dependent on the level of respon­­si­b­ility and the conseq­­uences of the action.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian under the Nazi regime. He spent in prison for speaking against the Nazi regime. Thinking about was happening in Germany he came to the conclusion that "the root of the problem was not malice, but stupid­ity."
Evil can be exposed and fought against. Against stupidity we are defens­eless.
"­Stu­pidity is not an intell­ectual defect­", says Bonhoe­ffer, "but a moral one. There are educated stupid people and wise uneducated people­".

“We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than indivi­duals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociab­ility. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psycho­logical than a sociol­ogical problem.”

“It is a particular form of the impact of historical circum­stances on human beings, a psycho­logical concom­itant of certain external condit­ions. Upon closer observ­ation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupid­ity.”

“Against stupidity we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbel­ieved — indeed, the fool can counter by critic­izing them, and if they are undeni­able, they can just be pushed aside as trivial except­ions. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-s­ati­sfied. In fact, they can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make them aggres­sive. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and danger­ous.”