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-{{A|devil|[[File:Cipolla-matrix.png|thumb|center|Stupidity mapped, yesterday.]]}}Italian economic historian and raconteur Carlo Cipolla pinned down stupidity in his 1976 essay ''Le leggi fondamentali della stupidità umana'' - “the basic laws of human stupidity”. They are, broadly, these:
+{{A|devil|[[File:Cipolla-matrix.png|thumb|center|Stupidity mapped, yesterday.]]}}Italian economic historian and raconteur {{author|Carlo Cipolla}} pinned down [[stupidity]] in his 1976 essay ''Le leggi fondamentali della stupidità umana'' — “the basic laws of human stupidity”. A worthy endeavour, but one from which the world appears not to have learned much in half a century. Which probably tells you everything you need to know.
-* To be stupid is to harm someone else without personally benefitting. Stupidity results inevitably in net loss. Pillagers may be nasty, but they aren’t stupid.
+Anyway, Cipolla’s laws of human stupidity boil down, broadly, to the following:
-* Stupid people are ''worse'' that pillagers. At least ''someone'' derives a benefit from pillaging.
+* To be stupid is to harm someone else without personally benefitting. Stupidity results inevitably in net loss. Everyone loses, at a minimum the time taken to listen to the idiot. Bandits, defectors, double-crossers and pillagers may be nasty, but because ''they'' benefit, they aren’t stupid.
+* Stupid people are ''worse'' that bandits. At least ''someone'' derives a benefit from banditry: the bandit.
 * An individual’s stupidity is independent of her other qualities. Tenured brainboxes, that is to say, are no less immune to stupidity as the rest of us.
 * We systematically underestimate how many stupid people there are.
 * We systematically underestimate how much damage stupid people can do.
-Cipolla went on to create one of those simplistic four-box charts which of course cannot possibly hope to describe the world, but is still an amusing [[heuristic]]. The two axes are “benefits to self” and “benefits to world”. The four quadrants are the ''intelligent'' who help others and help themselves; the ''bandits'', who help themselves by harming others, the ''helpless'', who help others without personally benefiting, and the ''stupid'' who basically just get in the way, not doing themselves or anyone else any favours.
+Cipolla went on to create one of those simplistic four-box charts beloved of the management layer which, of course, cannot possibly hope to describe the world, but are still an amusing and memorable [[heuristic]], apt for making the world more [[legible]]. The two axes are “benefits to self” and “benefits to world”. The four quadrants are populated by the ''intelligent'', who help others and help themselves; the ''bandits'', who help themselves by harming others, the ''helpless'', who help others without personally benefiting, and the ''stupid'' who basically just get in the way, not doing themselves or anyone else any good.
-Being as it is a cost, the [[JC]] is somewhere between ''helpless'' and ''stupid''. Being a glass half-full sort of fellow, I likes to think of myself as merely helpless. It certainly feels that way.
+The [[JC]] doesn’t benefit from this whole rigmarole, which puts him somewhere between ''helpless'' and ''stupid''. Being a glass half-full sort of fellow, I like to think of myself as merely helpless. It certainly feels that way.
 {{Sa}}
 *[[:Category:Archetypes|Archetypes]]