Social Dilemmas in Lineland and Flatland

Understanding social processes in which numerous agents are involved in iterated interactions is a difficult task. In the following I want to demonstrate that models based on rigorous simplifications are a promising approach for understanding complex social dynamics. The simplifications will go as far as to assume that individuals are living on a line interacting with neighbors to the left and to the right (Lineland). Another rigorous simplification will be that individuals are living on a checkerboard, interacting with their neighbors in the north, south, east and west (Flatland).