Carlo Maria Cipolla, an economic historian, is famous for his essays about human stupidity, such

as "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity".[8][9][10] He viewed stupid people as a group, more
powerful by far than major organizations such as the Mafia and the industrial complex, which
without regulations, leaders or manifesto nonetheless manages to operate to great effect and with
incredible coordination.
These are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:

1. Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in

circulation.
2. The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic
possessed by that person.
3. A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without
experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the
process.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they
constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or
associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.