Somethin’ Stupid

AUCKLAND, Yesterday: “Last weekend I was out fishing with some mates when we saved a dolphin,” writes Herald on Sunday columnist Paul Catmur, in the Business section of the Sunday paper.

“We found it tangled up in a long line and struggling to breathe. It’s not easy dealing with a panicked dolphin, but we eventually managed to cut most of the line away and it swam off looking for its mates.

“This was somewhat dangerous as freaked-out dolphins are tricky creatures at the best of times, but when you’re both attached to the same piece of unbreakable line things can easily head south.

“While some might think we were stupid, this was an example of being intelligent: An act which benefits the perpetrator as well as others.”

“I share this story not just to try and persuade you that maybe I actually do have a heart, but because while some people might think we were stupid, according to Carlo Cipolla, an Italian Professor of Economic History who died in 2000, this was an example of being intelligent: an act which benefits the perpetrator as well as others.

“We were chuffed that we had saved the poor bugger, and for others there’s one more dolphin to go around. Win, win.

“Cipolla’s theories are set out in his 1976 essay The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity and are becoming increasingly popular as half the world struggles to understand what on earth is going on with the other half.

“Cipolla splits humans into four groups based on who benefits from our acts …”

• Read it all here
• Or here (paysite)