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A comment on Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.

Re:Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they ar... by sinuhe69 on Sunday February 25, 2024 @11:44AM (#39502274)
Another example is the Hanoi's rat massacre.

In 1902, Hanoi, Vietnam was plagued by rats. The French colonial government, in an attempt to control the rat population, offered a bounty for each rat killed. However, this plan backfired spectacularly. People started breeding rats to collect the bounty! And the rat population exploded. This led to a surge in the bubonic plague, which killed thousands of people.

This event is a perfect example of the Shirky principle. Once a solution becomes institutionalized, it may perpetuate or even exacerbate the problem to secure its own existence.

[1] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-massacre-190...

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Re:Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they ar... by navane on Sunday February 25, 2024 @11:50AM (#39502326)
But it wasn't the institute who started breeding. This sounds more like "paying your programmers by the line" who then flatten their for loops.
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Re:Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they ar... by bluesnowmonkey on Sunday February 25, 2024 @12:08PM (#39502498)
That example is in the article.
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Re:Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they ar... by sinuhe69 on Sunday February 25, 2024 @12:34PM (#39502769)
Oh, I just skimmed the article to find an antidote and didn't know it was there!
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Re:Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they ar... by turboaspie on Sunday February 25, 2024 @12:32PM (#39502743)
That's an example of the Cobra effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

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