Verschlimmbesserung literally translates from German as ‘worsening improvement’ and speaks to trying to improve a situation but ending up making it worse. Basically, it is the German version of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” however it refers to the specific moment when active intervention causes catastrophe. While verschlimmbesserung may on occasion be the result of out and out stupidity, most of time it is the outcome of good intentions gone awry. 

Negative outcomes are often laid at the feet of the ‘law of unintended consequences’ however they are more the result of two related concepts:

1) radically insufficient analysis i.e. poor modeling

2) donning hubris-inspired blinders i.e. narrowed perception toward disconfirming evidence or downside risk.

Three common failings related to both:

Linear Thinking: Assuming A+B=C without accounting for feedback loops

Incentive Blindness: Failing to ask, “How will a rational human being game this new rule?” 

Political Expediency: Ignoring long-term risks to achieve a short-term ‘win’; pressure to take action even if ineffective: political theatre, performance over progress

Solution? Epistemic humility: Disciplined awareness of the limits, fallibility, and conditionality of one’s knowledge, combined with a willingness to update beliefs in light of better evidence.

Closing Quotes:

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” – Charles Darwin, 1809-1882

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” – Milton Friedman, 1912-2006, 1976 Nobel Prize for Economics

“Sentimentalism is the precursor of the unintended consequence. It looks at the immediate and the obvious and ignores the distant and the subtle.” – Theodore Dalrymple, b. 1949

As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier

Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832