Previously:

• Introduction and Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

Frequency Distribution

Most people do not act consistently. Under certain circumstances a given person acts intelligently and under different circumstances the same person will act helplessly. The only important exception to the rule is represented by the stupid people who normally show a strong proclivity toward perfect consistency in all field of human endeavors.

From all that proceeds, it does not follow that we can chart on the basic graph only stupid individuals. We can calculate for each person his weighted average position in the plane of figure 1

quite independently from his degree of inconsistency. A helpless person may occasionally behave intelligently and on occasion he may perform a bandit's action. But since the person in question is fundamentally helpless most of his action will have the characteristics of helplessness. Thus the overall weighted average position of all the actions of such person will place him in the H quadrant of the basic graph.

The fact that it is possible to place on the graph individuals instead of their actions allows some digression about the frequency of the bandit and stupid types.

The perfect bandit is one who, with his actions, causes to other individuals losses equal to his gains.

The crudest type of banditry is theft. A person who robs you of 100 pounds without causing you an extra loss or harm is a perfect bandit: you lose 100

pounds, he gains 100 pounds. ln the basic graph the perfect bandits would appear on a 45 degree diagonal line that divides the area B into two perfectly symmetrical sub-areas (line OM of figure 2).

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However the «perfect» bandits are relatively few. The line OM divided the area B into two subareas, B, and B8, and by far the largest majority of the bandits fall somewhere in one of these two sub-areas.

The bandits who fall in area B 1 are those individuals whose actions yield to them profits which are larger than the losses they cause to other people.

All bandits who are entitled to a position in area B 1 are bandits with overtones of intelligence and as they get doser to the right side of the X axis they share more and more the characteristics of the intelligent person. Unfortunately the individuals entitled to a position in the B, area are not very numerous. Most bandits actually fall in area B 8.

The individuals who fall in this area are those whose actions yield to them gains inferior to the losses inflicted to other people. If someone kills you in order to rob from you fifty pounds or if he murders you in order to spend a weekend with your wife at Monte Carlo, we can be sure that he is not a perfect bandit. Even by using his values to measure his gains (but still using your values to measure your losses) he falls in the B8 area very close to the border of sheer stupidity. Generals who cause vast destructions and innumerable casualties in return for a promotion or a medal fall in the same area.

The frequency distribution of the stupid people is totally different from that of the bandit. While bandits are mostly scattered over an area stupid people are heavily concentrated along one line, specifically on the Y axis below point O. The reason for this is that by far the majority of stupid people are basically and unwaveringly stupid - in other words they perseveringly insist in causing harm and losses to other people without deriving any gain, whether positive or negative. There are however people who by their improbable actions not only cause damages to other people but in addition hurt themselves. They are a sort of super-stupid who, in our system of accounting, will appear somewhere in the are a S to the left of the Y axis.

RECAP of Basic Law of Human stupidity:

1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals 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 to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

Stay tuned... more chapters and laws to come.