The Sixth Law of Stupidity: A Biophysical Interpretation of Carlo Cipolla's Stupidity Laws

Abstract

Carlo Cipolla's stupidity quadrant and his five laws of stupidity were proposed for the first time in 1976. Exposed in a humorous mood by the author, these concepts nevertheless describe very serious features of the interactions among human beings. Here, we propose a new interpretation of Cipolla's ideas in a biophysical framework, using the well-known predator-prey or "Lotka-Volterra" model. We find that there is indeed a correspondence between Cipolla's approach, based on economics, and biophysical economics. On the basis of this examination, we propose a sixth law of stupidity, additional to the five proposed by Cipolla. The law states that humans are the stupidest species in the ecosystem.