Stupidity is a defining trait of humanity

Human beings are prone to do stupid things. Human beings are prone to acts of stupidity that they defy imagination. Take for example the idea that banning something will stop its consumption.

A simple example of this is the ban on alcohol in many Indian states. People who read their history books know that this was attempted years ago in the 1920's in the United States on a country wide basis. The US at that point in history was undergoing a health crisis as a large share of its population was plagued with alcoholism and with the injection of Puritan outrage and an emerging womens movement at the time the easiest target was alcohol. Thus a ban was put in place from 1920 on the sale and consumption of Alcohol. Did this reduce alcohol consumption? No. Did it suddenly make men deal with the alcoholism? No.

What did it do?

It did a lot of things -

1. It created one of the largest and profitable black markets in history as the demand for alcohol did not stop.

2. It resulted in the deaths of thousands from alcohol poisoning from homemade alcohol

3. It gave impetus to organised crime who took over the black economy in the US. Corruption and crime went hand in hand as politician's and Bureaucrats took advantage of the situation to maximize their own agendas.

4. It turned a large share of the population against its government as people began to choose cooperation with criminals over the government. It literally turned millions of civilians into criminals.

5. Drug use shot up in places where alcohol could not be easily or cheaply acquired.

6. Crime increased exponentially.

7. Farmers were devasted especially those who sold wheat, poatatos, barley, etc. Their products were the core ingredients for various types of liquor and now that it was banned they had no place to sell their produce.

This stupidity thankfully was ended in 1933 as the ban was repealed. But alas the ideas of prohibition emerged again in India. Bihar recently banned alcohol and quite a few states in the Northeast had bans for years. The reasons? Puritanical fanaticism by Tribals in the northeast and appeasing women voters in Bihar. Did this ban work in the Northeast? Nope, it did not. But you know what it did, drug use went up substantially, North East states are infamous for drug abuse. One such result is that one state even has the highest number of HIV positive cases per capita in India. So you do the math?

Stupidity like this is engrained in human nature, very rare is the instance when man learns from the mistakes of his ancestors. Stupidity pervade ever facet of human activity. Our only solution is to educate the masses, that isn't likely to happen, so enjoy.