4 Rules

For some years now, I have toyed with making some kind of list of the ten most important or enjoyable books I have read (different lists) but it has been very hard, mostly because I could easily extend both lists to 20 or 30, and partly because many books I (most) have been lost to moves and unfortunate storage choices by my relatives when I left them in their care.

Nevertheless, I recently posted on the Best book I ever read. But that was my attempt at mixing what I thought was important with what I enjoyed. By the same token, my own books, The Face on Mars could be of the same category, if for very different reasons. While Reclaiming the Catholic Church – The True History of Vatican II and the Visible Remnant of the Real Catholic Church now that the Vatican is a Pederast Infested Hive of Impostors, to my mind, would be important, but probably not as fun to read (still way ahead of any book on theology I read to date though).

Believe! On the other hand was a short book and to the point, with references, and relatively entertaining too, and it probably had far more of an impact than the detailed deep dive that Reclaiming had. Certainly I didn’t expect whole families to convert to Catholic Sedevacantism as regularly and as frequently as that little book seemed to have inspired. So one could say it was a useful book.

By the above metrics then, I hope to explain why I consider this book, freely available at the link, to be the most important I ever read.

Carlo Cipolla was obviously a brilliant man, but his book, THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY is truly ground-breaking.

He encapsulated in both hilarious yet perfectly accurate scientific notation, just how human stupidity presents itself in observable reality.

As he mentions in his own first edition of the book.

In fact, the publisher’s note alone is worth reproducing in full:

The private edition of 1976 was preceded by the following publisher’s note written by the author himself:

The Mad Millers printed only a limited number of copies of this book, which addresses itself not to stupid people but to those who on occasion have to deal with such people. To add that none of those who will receive this book can possibly fall in area S of the basic graph (figure 1) is therefore a work of supererogation. Nevertheless, like most works of supererogation, it is better done than left undone. For, as the Chinese philosopher said: “Erudition is the source of universal wisdom: but that does not prevent it from being an occasional cause of misunderstanding between friends.”

Supererogation means to do more than is required (especially in a work). So Cipolla is saying that although it should be obvious that stupid people will not be the ones reading it or making use of it, it is best to state it, even if it should be obvious, and he (politely in my opinion) states that this is necessary even among “erudite” friends, in order to avoid misunderstanding.

Now you know why I have rather long-run-on sentences and verbose paragraphs to make relatively simple points. I could make them in a sentence, but then… the “erudites” who grasp the full meaning would be a tiny number indeed!

I also agree that though he was Italian, the work is really best appreciated in English, which is how he wrote it. I find the same is true of much of my own work. The English language is perfectly technical and lends itself far better to technical explanations, scientific work, and precise language. We Lagos tend to lose something in translation in the written word if we can’t add a look, a hand gesture, or both. And the number of people who can write in technically excellent Italian are probably down to a half dozen. those who can appreciate it may ten or so.

At any rate, you really need to read this short book the Professor left for the non-stupid.

The planet is fast approaching a critical mass of stupidity that may well result in the extinction of the human race, or at least, of that part of it that makes life on this planet marginally tolerable despite the teeming waves of idiots we are constantly surrounded by.

Mostly, this is because of a corollary I would like to add to his Fifth Law of Human Stupidity.

A STUPID PERSON IS THE MOST DANGEROUS TYPE OF PERSON. A STUPID PERSON IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN A BANDIT.

Professor Cipolla himself already understood the inevitable result of the relationship between stupid people and power (in the political and force-projection sense), as he wrote finally at the end of the fifth law:

Given the current state of affairs however, it is important to spell this out in even simpler terms:

The Bandits use the Stupid to weaponise them against any attempt (by the Intelligent) of removing them from power.

It may be the natural (or Divinely Ordained) order of things that humanity is indeed to go extinct, as some giant Universe 25 experiment with mice, be that as it may, surely, as a member of the Intelligent group, it behoves us to do whatever we can to ensure the continuation of at least our part of humanity, as best we can.

Aside the fact that humans are not mice, and that the Universe 25 narrative played very much in the depopulationist boomer agenda espoused by the culprits of the recent mass-murder event called COVID, with its related fake “vaccines” that are really murderous genetic serums, there is also the fact that if intelligent humans organise and come together, their effect on the planet is far more impactful than the masses of idiots that inevitably get in our way to derail plans and efforts, as they invariably do.

In short, the book Cipolla wrote is extremely important because it formally recognises a fundamental issue that humanity has to face in order to survive the next stage of human advancement: The increasing and intentional stupidification of the human race by a few bandits orchestrating it.

Only a concerted effort by organised intelligent people can counter this global phenomenon.

Which, of course, is why I started trying to build up a Sedevacantist Catholic Community in a remote village in Italy. While my wife and I, despite our rather advanced age for it, certainly did not shirking our duty of making a bunch of children.

It is heartening to see that other sedevacantist couples, younger and therefore likely to produce many more children, are trying to do the same in their own ways in various places around the world.

The independent cell-nature of the Sede Catholics, coupled with absolutely shared dogmatic values, is a strong combination for weathering all sorts of nefarious events and plots by the Bandits; and historically too, no one has been quite as successful at rising from the supposed ashes of their religion.

So we are on good ground.

Go read Professor Cipolla’s Magnum Opus. It is truly wonderful and important.