Oops, that's not quite what I meant...

dragonsi55 — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 07:51:47 -0800

Wordfilter: looking for a word or phrase that describes social paradoxical effects, where the action results in the opposite of its intention. The phrase 'paradoxical effect' comes up in medicine and biochemistry, when a substance initiates a chain which sends the system the opposite direction from what is 'normal.'
Homeopathy is based on the principle.

Two social examples:
Blue-chip companies not recruiting straight-A students like they once did.
One reason being a higher incidence of cheaters, who are more likely to embezzle;
another aspect being that one or two poorer grades indicated better prioritizing.
(I can't locate the original article on this.)

Another is the recent news about "Troops in debt can't go overseas,"
which is likely to increase the number of troops going into debt.

There's an aspect of feedback here,
but none of these have that hint of 'oops,' where it seemed like a good idea at the time…

This seems like something an economics phrase or a German word would describe.
Perhaps I'm trying to split too fine a hair,
but AskMe has amazed me in the past.
Any ideas?

Suggestions: songs of misunderstood intent.

oflinkey — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:09:33 -0800

I have an idea for a theme CD- songs of misunderstood intent. Any suggestions? [more inside] REM's "One I Love" is often misconstrued as a romantic song, as is Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight". Barring any songs that sound like love songs but are actually about God, (It doesn't light up my life, personally...) any other suggestions for this disc?

Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with intent

Oops, that's not quite what I meant...

Suggestions: songs of misunderstood intent.