Regular Article

The destructive effect of human stupidity: a revision of Cipolla’s fundamental laws

¹ Centro Atómico Bariloche and CONICET, R8402AGP Bariloche, Argentina
² Instituto Balseiro, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, R8402AGP Bariloche, Argentina
³ Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Ciudad Universitaria, 5000 Córdoba, Argentina

^a e-mail: kuperman@cab.cnea.gov.ar

Received: 6 July 2020
Received in final form: 11 September 2020
Accepted: 23 September 2020
Published online: 18 November 2020

Abstract

In this work, we analyze an evolutionary game that incorporates the ideas presented by Carlo Cipolla in “The fundamental laws of human stupidity”. The game considers four strategies, three of them are inherent to the player behavior and can evolve via imitation dynamics, while the fourth one is associated with an eventual behavior that can be adopted by any player at any time with a certain probability. This fourth strategy corresponds to what Cipolla calls a stupid person. The probability of behaving stupidly acts as a parameter that induces a phase transition in the steady distribution of strategies among the population.