I’ll give some examples:

  • defunding the prevention of food born illnesses leads to them becoming an issue in 2026

  • understaffing IT departments because “we don’t have issues” then issues magically appear when support is taken away (surprised Pikachu face)

  • a magic witch preforms a yearly protection circle around your house, but you don’t want to pay any more because the gremlin infestation is gone, but they come back after the protection circle dissipates

  • they put armed guards on merchant ships to prevent somali piracy, but then the pirates slowed down so the companies got complicit and now somali pirates are becoming an issue again

  • i (in my infinite stupidity) don’t take my medicine because I feel fine, then after a few days I turn into a disaster pile of suicidal ideation and take my medicine to fix it

  • screw worms or something idk

but like the problem is in a loop where it just repeats forever because people don’t realize what’s preventing the issue

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
      7·
      2 days ago

      Complacency gets close, though I think it’s more for things where you don’t act when you should, and what OP described could almost count as sabotage - the difference between not increasing the range of an alert system (complacency) and taking it down, in both cases because “we haven’t had an alert in X time”

  • abrake@lemmy.world
    17·
    2 days ago

    In 2013 Ruth Bader Ginsburg made a famous analogy about the US Supreme Court gutting the voting rights act. She said it’s like “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” That comes pretty close to your sentiment, OP.

  • Krudler@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    The concept you are describing is stopping preventative maintenance and discovering the consequences of said. I just don’t have a word for it.

  • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
    10·
    2 days ago

    In software development this is called a regression, and it is why we have regression tests. If you don’t run or check the regression tests, the problems they’re testing for can (and do) come back.

  • 5318008@lemmy.ml
    10·
    2 days ago

    The best existing phrase I have is, “Dropping your guard.”

    It doesn’t necessarily imply anything about why you dropped your guard, and only slightly implies that the bad thing happened while your guard was down.

    We could coin a new phrase here by brainstorming. I’ll start:

    Fumbled the shield

  • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
    9·
    2 days ago

    Like God said to Bender in Futurama “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all”. I propose calling this Bender’s Paradox.

  • No_Money_Just_Change@feddit.orgDeutsch
    3·
    2 days ago

    The thing with the witch sounds more like mafiosi protection money.
    She sells you the circle, and if you don’t pay, she casts summon goblins on your house

  • doc@fedia.io
    5·
    2 days ago

    There should be a word.

    My father-in-law was not feeling well recently so we took him to the doctor. He presented with very high blood pressure and we were all asking him what happened to the blood pressure medicine he was taking for a decade. He replied, “I stopped taking it because last time they checked my blood pressure it was fine.”

    This absolutely needs a word.

    • alternategait@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      This is closely related to all the people in the hospital who are like “I didn’t need all these meds and supportive oxygen at home. The hospital is making me sick!”

  • naught101@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 days ago
    • These are all types of weak regulation, I think
    • Efficiency is an aim that can lead to this
    • Systemic Fragility, or low resilience is the result
    • Chesterton’s Fence (a fence should not be removed until it is understood why it was built in the first place)
    • Short-sightedness is a cause
    • Not being able to see the wood for the trees is another