Another Goodhart's Law Example
Aug. 4th, 2022 09:43 amWhen a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
E.g., when repairmen are evaluated based on the number of support tickets they close, they stop helping each other and start causing trivial problems that they then triumphantly fix. When they are evaluated on the amount of time the equipment they are responsible for is not working, they start applying "quick fix band-aids" instead of long-term solutions.
Another example is war - after the UN criminalized war and aggression, no wars have been officially declared.
This did not stop the fighting, of course, it's just that Russia calls its current invasion of Ukraine a "special military operation" and Ukraine enacted martial law and a general mobilization of all male Ukrainian citizens between 18 and 60, but did not declare a war, calling it instead "a pre-war situation".