Stupidity Tax

Two news story on BBC news really pushed my wtf buttons this morning - A 20-year-old woman from Leicester was imprisoned because thought it would be funny to overtake a siren-sounding ambulance, laughing and making obscene gestures at the ambulance crew, and slowed down, causing the vehicle to brake suddenly, whilst at the back of the ambulance a paramedic was giving heart compressions to an elderly patient. Full story here. Seriously...wtf! Who does that..!?!!

And story number two is where an NHS Trust clinic caused a couple's embryo to be wrongly implanted in a different patient, causing much distress to the couple who have been having pregnancy difficulties for years, and the Trust having to pay an undisclosed settlement to the couple. Full story here.

Turning to the plank in my own eye, I managed to melt the anti-slip rubber on the bottom of one of my little floor mats by keeping my rice cooker and electric kettle/hot water pot on it at all times. The consequence was I had to peel off the mat from the floor, and spent 20 minutes scrubbing off the melted bits off the wooden floor in the kitchen. But not really that big of a plank compared to the above stories from the BBC.

Which brings me to stupidity tax. Stories like that make me think it's not actually an such absurd thing. Acts of stupidity usually bring an amount of unhealthy or harmful consequences to society - either to the person himself and/or to others in society. In both of the above cases they've caused considerable damage to people outside of themselves, as well as to themselves (being imprisoned and paying the settlement respectively).

If stupidity can be seen as a demerit good, and if the government's role is to reduce demerit goods in society, then maybe people like this should be taxed in order to internalise this negative externality. And then the government should use the money to educate people in common sense. Or maybe society needs 'common sense licenses' where everyone is required to hold one in order to be allowed interact in society, and is taken away and must either be on house arrest or put in isolation when stupidity is breached.