I don't know about the specific case of the reverse of the XY-problem, but in general I'd say it fits within the law of unintended consequences [1], the cobra e

I don't know about the specific case of the reverse of the XY-problem, but in general I'd say it fits within the law of unintended consequences [1], the cobra effect [2], and as a sort of qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) version of Campbell's law [3]. Very interesting stuff! [1] https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/handouts/french/unintconseq.html https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/handouts/french/unin... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law