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It also comes from Parkinson's Law: give a full-time employee only one thing to do and it will become a full time job, even if it could be done more expeditiously.

It also comes from systems. They function to expand themselves, not to serve the purpose for which they were created.




This is also known as the Agent-Principal problem. [0]

Usually this is "solved" via "aligning incentives". [1] But as we all know from James Cameron's documentaries as he followed the Connors, it's not that easy to notice when things go awry.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble... [1] https://intelligence.org/research/




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