If Nassim Taleb is endorsing something, then it's probably going to be worth reading. He authors the foreword to this short work by an underappreciated Italian economic historian (first recommended to me by Oliver Oram), which has to be the most efficient I have ever read in terms of conveying a crucial point (set of points) effectively. This is behavioral economics at its best. Consider — 1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid people in circulation. 2. The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or group of persons while himself deriving no gain, or and even possibly incurring losses. 4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. 5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. Superb.
Reading archive
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
by Carlo M. Cipolla
- Form
- non-fiction
- First published
- 1976
- Edition
- Penguin, 2019
- Read
- December 2020
- Rating
- N/R