Model Perspective

Oct 10, 2026 · Industry Insights

Why Honest People Get Exploited: It's Not Honesty, It's Gullibility

The article argues that honest people suffer losses not because they are honest but because they are easily deceived; using game theory, evolutionary dynamics, and Axelrod's tournaments, it shows that being 'hard to fool' — detecting deception, retaliating, and forgiving — reduces exploitation, and that lowering the proportion of gullible people makes deception unprofitable.