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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
medium-paced
funny
fast-paced
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
"Finally, one wonders: why is there a constant proportion of stupid people, invariant to time, place, geography, profession, body mass index, degrees of separation from the Queen of Denmark, and professional rank? […] Could it be that Mother Nature (or God, whatever your theology) wants to put a brake on things, reduce the speed of progress, slow down the growth of your employer, prevent GDP from an exponential rise so the economy doesn’t overheat? So She created the stupid person acting against both his and the collective interest to do just that?"
funny
informative
slow-paced
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
funny
informative
lighthearted
Je n'ai pas pu me retenir de rire durant toute cette lecture. Percutant, drôle, et on ne peut plus vrai, juste parfait.
"Notre quotidien est surtout fait d’incidents qui nous font perdre de l’argent, et/ou du temps, et/ou de l’énergie, et/ou notre appétit, notre gaieté et notre santé, en raison de l’action improbable d’une créature ridicule qui n’a rien à gagner et qui ne gagne effectivement rien à nous causer de l’embarras, des difficultés ou du mal. Personne ne sait, ne comprend ni ne peut expliquer pourquoi cette créature ridicule agit ainsi. En réalité, il n’y a pas d’explication ou, mieux encore, il n’y a qu’une seule explication : l’individu en question est stupide."
"Notre quotidien est surtout fait d’incidents qui nous font perdre de l’argent, et/ou du temps, et/ou de l’énergie, et/ou notre appétit, notre gaieté et notre santé, en raison de l’action improbable d’une créature ridicule qui n’a rien à gagner et qui ne gagne effectivement rien à nous causer de l’embarras, des difficultés ou du mal. Personne ne sait, ne comprend ni ne peut expliquer pourquoi cette créature ridicule agit ainsi. En réalité, il n’y a pas d’explication ou, mieux encore, il n’y a qu’une seule explication : l’individu en question est stupide."
Quick impressions: A short essay that got turned into a book. From what the text says, this work has been around for a while, since at least 1988, but it is only now making it to the U.S. Anyhow, an OK read where the author presents his five laws and explains them. It can be a bit depressing once you realize there is no escaping the stupid.
(Full review on my blog later)
(Full review on my blog later)
This is a short but very enlightening book that's well worth a read if you want to understand why you're surrounded by idiots. QAnon idiots, anti-vax idiots, political idiots, whatever. Both tongue-and-cheek and serious, the author, an economist, defines stupid people in terms of the quantifiable consequences of their actions: "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." He maintains that stupid people are inherently genetically stupid, which may be controversial to some, but he qualifies this with the assertion that stupid people are equally distributed among all races, genders and classes of people, from blue-collar workers to Nobel laureates.
Probably the most powerful part of the book for me was the idea that while societies that are evolving up and societies that are in decline have the same overall proportion of stupid people, societies in decline are in decline because they fail to constrain stupid people's worst excesses, and also because of shifts in status among the non-stupid population (which he divides into intelligent people, helpless people, and bandits).
My one quibble is that I would have like to actually see some of the many studies the author alludes to; this book was initially self-published as a sort of pamphlet, and though it makes intuitive sense it would be great to see some of the studies to back it up.
Probably the most powerful part of the book for me was the idea that while societies that are evolving up and societies that are in decline have the same overall proportion of stupid people, societies in decline are in decline because they fail to constrain stupid people's worst excesses, and also because of shifts in status among the non-stupid population (which he divides into intelligent people, helpless people, and bandits).
My one quibble is that I would have like to actually see some of the many studies the author alludes to; this book was initially self-published as a sort of pamphlet, and though it makes intuitive sense it would be great to see some of the studies to back it up.