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WHARRGARBL@lemmy.world

What is your quintessential example of a historical ruling or law of unintended consequences? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago by WHARRGARBL@lemmy.world to c/askhistorians@lemmy.world

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I just learned that the egregious US Citizens United (2010) decision is a convoluted result of several altruistic campaign finance reforms beginning with the 1907 Tillman Act to FECA (1971) and Buckley v. Valeo (1976).

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[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The wiki article on perverse incentives has a whole catalog, but the most famous (though perhaps apocryphal) is the “cobra effect”: the British in colonial India supposedly put a bounty on cobras, which led to an increase in the cobra population when people started farming them to collect more rewards.

[–] disregardable@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago

The same thing actually happened in Colonial Vietnam with the French and rats.