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I come across this maybe once a year while browsing the internet, and I'm always impressed. The author's ability to get just the right mix of resigned dry wit s

I come across this maybe once a year while browsing the internet, and I'm always impressed. The author's ability to get just the right mix of resigned dry wit so he doesn't come across as cocky or a jerk or a defeatist... it's rather incredible. There's gems in there, too - > 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. Indeed. You can deal with a person who wants to gain, and is comfortable gaining at your expense. They're somewhat predictable, so you can deal with them if you're careful. But the person who is a whirlwind of calamity - making his own life worse and others around - you can't deal with that guy. The author continues: > A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. And then, and I love this - > A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit. Indeed! Bandits are unpleasant, but usually easily understandable. With appropriate cautions, you might even be able to transact with a bandit for a short time if it's necessary. But like the author says, the man who does stupid things is much more dangerous. With a bandit, it's possible to assess what you have and where you're at that they might want to take from you, and to take precautions. With the man who randomly breaks things for no reason, no such precaution can be taken because even the most basic, unevaluated, routine action could be bungled leading to bad results for all inclined. Gosh, I always enjoy reading this piece, even though I've seen it a bunch. I should send it to some people who might have not have read it.

nazgulnarsil 15y ago
the bandit on the upper half isn't necessarily unpleasant. we applaud when someone manages to make money from stupid people. value transferred from stupid people to intelligent people is an important aspect of wealth creation on a society wide level. after all, stupid people often destroy what wealth they manage to get. but I agree with the conclusion of the article. It is an important measure of a society whether banditry, helplessness, and stupidity are venerated.
- sirclueless 15y ago
  > stupid people often destroy what wealth they manage to get. Usually by giving it to bandits.
  - nazgulnarsil 15y ago
    wealth isn't zero sum or mercantilist. you can easily destroy wealth right now by smashing your monitor.
warmfuzzykitten 15y ago
Of course you enjoy it. It makes you feel smart.
- 0003 15y ago
  It makes us all look smart, but reinforces the fear that the majority of us belong to H1. Society improves, but at what cost to us?
- lionhearted 15y ago
  > Of course you enjoy it. It makes you feel smart. You know what's funny? I think this is exactly what the author would call a "stupid" remark - it's meant to say something nasty about the person you're replying to, and you don't even gain from it! You see, the irony here is that the author isn't actually talking about stupidity and intelligence. He's actually talking about people who engage in lose/win, win/win, lose/lose, or win/lose behavior. He calls those "helpless", "intelligent", "stupid", and "bandit" - but normal definitions of stupidity and intelligence don't really apply, as he notes that Nobel laureates often engage in stupid (lose/lose) behavior, despite being intelligent under normal definitions. Your comment here? It's a pretty good example of lose/lose behavior - it's designed to be a bit of a jerk towards me and makes you look snarky in the process. Lose/lose. So yeah dude, stop doing that ;)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcantor 15y ago
    Maybe I'm just an optimist, but it didn't actually seem to me like he was trying to say anything nasty about you. I thought he was just joking/reflecting on the universal appeal of the article--it's well-written and accessible, so it would make most readers feel smart, and everyone likes feeling smart.
    - arctangent 15y ago
      If we could see how many votes each of the comments got we'd know who had done better out of the exchange :-)
Natsu 15y ago
> 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. You have to be careful with the "deriving no gain" part, though. In game theory, it's valid to punish someone by incurring a loss if they're trying to gain at everyone else's expense. That's used in the Tit-for-Tat strategy in the Prisoner's Dilemma, for example. Granted, you can say that it's for the sake of future gain, rather than present gain, but there are times when our lack of knowledge about the circumstances can lead us to commit the fundamental attribution error. Are they "stupid" or are there circumstances of which we're unaware? Of course, if you have the misfortune of knowing them for long enough, it's generally not that hard to figure out which is which. One law I didn't see, though, is that we all do stupid things sometimes.
- ilkandi 15y ago
  It's under "frequency distribution". I like the redefinition of stupidity! There are times we think "yeah.. i see the pattern.. I know where this is gonna go". And we're right. Yet we take the lose-lose action just for the heck of it or just because we can. So intelligent, but stupid.
- vorg 15y ago
  > our lack of knowledge about the circumstances can lead us to commit the fundamental attribution error. Are they "stupid" or are there circumstances of which we're unaware? Such circumstances also depend on the timeframe of the people involved. One person might have a 30-day perspective, another person is thinking about the grandchildren. The HISB-square looks a lot like the Win-win(intelligent), Win-lose(bandit), Lose-win(helpless), and Lose-lose(stupid) grid of negotiation theory. The time when Win-lose is a valid strategy is when there's no ongoing relationship between the two parties, e.g. bargaining for goods in a no-refunds market. The whole idea of commodity/stock/etc exchanges is built around this concept. When some bandit pulls a Win-lose when there's an ongoing relationship, it's easy for the helpless loser to turn a Win-lose into a Lose-lose situation. It might look like revenge, but it could be to establish a track record for their next negotiation. Besides timeframe, such circumstances depend on information available. There's many bandits around who hide their true identity, and pose as intelligent for appearances sake, but are pulling some nasty banditry behind the scenes. I'd suggest a counter-rule to rule 1: Always and inevitably everyone overestimates the number of intelligent individuals in circulation. The intelligent-posing bandits in that situation call the helpless losers who swung a win-lose into a lose-lose "stupid". After many such incidents, the helpless tend to always assume they're dealing with a bandit, even though the other person may be intelligent. These are school playground lessons. So I'd propose a second corrolary to the fifth rule's first corrolary (i.e A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit): Stupid people become stupid because bandits pose as intelligent.
ksolanki 15y ago
This is entertaining read, but there is some irony there. Should add one more law. "A stupid person almost always is not aware of his/her stupidity, and often thinks others are stupid."

nazgulnarsil 15y ago

the bandit on the upper half isn't necessarily unpleasant. we applaud when someone manages to make money from stupid people. value transferred from stupid people to intelligent people is an important aspect of wealth creation on a society wide level. after all, stupid people often destroy what wealth they manage to get. but I agree with the conclusion of the article. It is an important measure of a society whether banditry, helplessness, and stupidity are venerated.

sirclueless 15y ago
> stupid people often destroy what wealth they manage to get. Usually by giving it to bandits.
- nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  wealth isn't zero sum or mercantilist. you can easily destroy wealth right now by smashing your monitor.

warmfuzzykitten 15y ago

Of course you enjoy it. It makes you feel smart.

0003 15y ago
It makes us all look smart, but reinforces the fear that the majority of us belong to H1. Society improves, but at what cost to us?
lionhearted 15y ago
> Of course you enjoy it. It makes you feel smart. You know what's funny? I think this is exactly what the author would call a "stupid" remark - it's meant to say something nasty about the person you're replying to, and you don't even gain from it! You see, the irony here is that the author isn't actually talking about stupidity and intelligence. He's actually talking about people who engage in lose/win, win/win, lose/lose, or win/lose behavior. He calls those "helpless", "intelligent", "stupid", and "bandit" - but normal definitions of stupidity and intelligence don't really apply, as he notes that Nobel laureates often engage in stupid (lose/lose) behavior, despite being intelligent under normal definitions. Your comment here? It's a pretty good example of lose/lose behavior - it's designed to be a bit of a jerk towards me and makes you look snarky in the process. Lose/lose. So yeah dude, stop doing that ;)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- mcantor 15y ago
  Maybe I'm just an optimist, but it didn't actually seem to me like he was trying to say anything nasty about you. I thought he was just joking/reflecting on the universal appeal of the article--it's well-written and accessible, so it would make most readers feel smart, and everyone likes feeling smart.
  - arctangent 15y ago
    If we could see how many votes each of the comments got we'd know who had done better out of the exchange :-)

Natsu 15y ago

> 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. You have to be careful with the "deriving no gain" part, though. In game theory, it's valid to punish someone by incurring a loss if they're trying to gain at everyone else's expense. That's used in the Tit-for-Tat strategy in the Prisoner's Dilemma, for example. Granted, you can say that it's for the sake of future gain, rather than present gain, but there are times when our lack of knowledge about the circumstances can lead us to commit the fundamental attribution error. Are they "stupid" or are there circumstances of which we're unaware? Of course, if you have the misfortune of knowing them for long enough, it's generally not that hard to figure out which is which. One law I didn't see, though, is that we all do stupid things sometimes.

ilkandi 15y ago
It's under "frequency distribution". I like the redefinition of stupidity! There are times we think "yeah.. i see the pattern.. I know where this is gonna go". And we're right. Yet we take the lose-lose action just for the heck of it or just because we can. So intelligent, but stupid.
vorg 15y ago
> our lack of knowledge about the circumstances can lead us to commit the fundamental attribution error. Are they "stupid" or are there circumstances of which we're unaware? Such circumstances also depend on the timeframe of the people involved. One person might have a 30-day perspective, another person is thinking about the grandchildren. The HISB-square looks a lot like the Win-win(intelligent), Win-lose(bandit), Lose-win(helpless), and Lose-lose(stupid) grid of negotiation theory. The time when Win-lose is a valid strategy is when there's no ongoing relationship between the two parties, e.g. bargaining for goods in a no-refunds market. The whole idea of commodity/stock/etc exchanges is built around this concept. When some bandit pulls a Win-lose when there's an ongoing relationship, it's easy for the helpless loser to turn a Win-lose into a Lose-lose situation. It might look like revenge, but it could be to establish a track record for their next negotiation. Besides timeframe, such circumstances depend on information available. There's many bandits around who hide their true identity, and pose as intelligent for appearances sake, but are pulling some nasty banditry behind the scenes. I'd suggest a counter-rule to rule 1: Always and inevitably everyone overestimates the number of intelligent individuals in circulation. The intelligent-posing bandits in that situation call the helpless losers who swung a win-lose into a lose-lose "stupid". After many such incidents, the helpless tend to always assume they're dealing with a bandit, even though the other person may be intelligent. These are school playground lessons. So I'd propose a second corrolary to the fifth rule's first corrolary (i.e A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit): Stupid people become stupid because bandits pose as intelligent.

ksolanki 15y ago

This is entertaining read, but there is some irony there. Should add one more law. "A stupid person almost always is not aware of his/her stupidity, and often thinks others are stupid."