This was originally written in 1996 as a “special report” for Entropy Gradient Reversals, that had asked me for some comments on human stupidity. I was surprised when it was translated into Spanish in 1998. Later several readers asked me to publish an Italian version, which I did in September, 2001.
This version is revised, in December 2006, also in relation to several things that I wrote in following years (see index) – but the substance is essentially the same.
A much wider development is in a book, in Italian, English and Spanish.
The study of stupidity can be seen as a branch of a more extended subject, “why things go wrong” (see Murphy, Parkinson, Peter and Cipolla.) But it could be also the other way round. All the behaviors that lead to wrong decisions can be seen as ways of being stupid – and none, dismal as they may be, have such devastating effects as human stupidity.
I have always been fascinated with Stupidity. My own, of course; and that’s a big enough cause of anxiety.
But things get much worse when one has a chance to find out how Big People take Big Decisions.
We generally tend to blame awful decisions on intentional perversity, astute mischievousness, megalomania, etc. They are there, all right; but any careful study of history, or current events, leads to the invariable conclusion that the single biggest source of terrible mistakes is sheer stupidity.
This fact is quite widely understood by anyone who has had a chance to look into the subject. One of the ways in which it is summarized is known as Hanlon’s Razor: «Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.» The same concept was confirmed by Robert Heinlein in a shorter and simpler statement: «Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.»
The origin of Hanlon’s Razor is uncertain. It can be considered as a corollary to Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives (which is similar to Murphy’s Law). It’s inspired by a classic, Occam’s Razor (and it’s equally sharp). “Hanlon” is probably a phonetic variation on the name of Robert Heinlein, who had stated that concept in his novel Logic of Empire in1941.
Via
Ricard Lloria
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