Evolutionary game inspired by Cipolla's basic laws of human stupidity

Abstract

In this work we present an evolutionary game inspired by the work of Carlo Cipolla entitled The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity. The game expands the classical scheme of two archetypical strategies, collaborators and defectors, by including two additional strategies. One of these strategies is associated with a stupid player that, according to Cipolla, is the most dangerous one as it undermines the global wealth of the population. By considering a spatial evolutionary game and imitation dynamics that go beyond the paradigm of a rational player we explore the impact of Cipolla's ideas and analyze the extent of the damage that stupid players inflict on the population.