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There's a name for this anti-pattern, the Cobra Effect[0]: The term cobra effect was coined by economist Horst Siebert based on an anecdotal occurrence in Indi
by qohen 3y ago
There's a name for this anti-pattern, the Cobra Effect[0]:
The term cobra effect was coined by economist Horst Siebert based on an anecdotal occurrence in India during British rule. The British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, enterprising people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped. When cobra breeders set their now-worthless snakes free, the wild cobra population further increased.
(There may be some question as to whether these events actually occurred or not, but there are similar examples of documented pest-control campaigns (and others) on the Wikipedia page[0] where similar things happened).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive#The_original_cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive#The_origina...
- Justsignedup 3y agoah yes, thanks for that. Yeah I've been looking into the cobra effect in the current youtube adblocking thingy... It certainly got me to use primarily adnausium which fixes the problem since ads are served, just... you know... maliciously clicked on.