Isee ‘stupidity’ as a sort of defined field with two axes, like an XY graph.

On the X and Y axes, you have a zero point, which is neither stupid nor clever. The positive X axis increases from zero to the right until it reaches the limit of ‘extreme cleverness’. The negative X axis decreases from zero to the left until it reaches the limit of ‘extreme stupidness’. The Y axis increases going up to ‘extreme correctness’, while the Y axis decreases going down to ‘extreme incorrectness’.

Thus, for example, we could define any number of points on our graph by an example in real life. The decision to take down the fences of the Kruger National Park to unite this park, the Gonarezou and the Northern Mocambique national parks to form the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park would be a point on the field which is ‘extreme correctness’ (Y axis), since it restores animal migration paths, and ‘extreme stupidness’, since it gives a few thousand Mozambicans the ability to poach all kinds of animals, predominantly rhino, at will. What were they thinking of? A poverty-stricken country, once at war for 14 years, a dodgy government, a weak-willed wildlife management and . . . take down the fence and let the bush-meat in. Yuh.

What about wind turbines? Brian Dames, who is merely the CEO of Eskom and, if we believe the wind power supporters, is ignorant about power costs, says that wind power (and renewables) will cost Eskom about R2/kWh. The wind power people say that, no, the CEO of Eskom is wrong and the cost will be 89c/kWh. Who do we believe? I would put my money on Dames. To believe the assertions of the wind power people plots out as ‘extreme stupidness’ and ‘extreme incorrectness’.

But I do not wish to just bat on and on and on about things which are stupid. I want to deal with concepts related to engineering. Is there a boundary, termed the Limit of Stupidity (LIS), where nothing could ever be more stupid? We have to conclude that the LIS is ever expanding, like the universe. It must be pushing back the boundary of what was previously unimaginable to the ‘imaginable but supremely stupid’. For example, in the 1600s, it would be unimaginable to tell King James I that he was a dumb protestant fool, since the result would be a fairly slow, agonising death.

About 200 years later, when Beau Brummel referred to Lord Avanley’s companion, the Prince of Wales, the future George IV, as Avanley’s “fat friend”, Brummel was not executed but was merely excluded from society, to die penniless and insane.

In engineering, we see this trend ever increasing as computers get more and more sophisticated. Some cars now have an ‘improved’ accelerator control whereby the cable from the accelerator to the carburettor is no longer there. The accelerator is connected to a sensor that runs to a computer, which does the function previously done by means of a mechanical link. This is regarded as an advance. Previously, the cable arrangement could work, get stuck or snap. Now the computer adds permutations of acceleration with brakes full on, not working, working on and off intermittently, full acceleration at low speed – the list is endless. The ‘improvement’ has been created from circumstances previously unimaginable to the ‘imaginable but supremely stupid’.

The problem is that, in engineering, one zeros in on needed engineering requirements pretty quickly. When deciding about a design, there are a number of broad choices one makes, all of which are fairly obvious – cars should have one engine and four wheels, and not the other way round. Passengers should sit upright. Then, following prototype and sales, innovations creep in which are really useful. However, after a while, improvements become marginal and soon become stupid and, when the improvements increase the number of possible failure modes, very stupid. One should realise that, as much as there is a limit to stupidity, there is a limit to cleverness.

Push the limit of cleverness and you may just be creating a new limit of stupidity. Doesn’t stop people from trying, unfortunately.