Where is balance Academic priorities 308

I think "mission creep" is overly charitable as a description. When enforcing the "rules" becomes counter-productive in achieveing the original goals (which "zero tolerance" has been shown to do in studies, well beyond levels required for standard confidence levels) it is no longer "mission creep" but something else.

Bureaucracies become self-justifying (as was noted decades ago, e.g., "The Peter Principle"), at which point their existence and the function they were intended to implement originally often become disconnected (at best) or (more often) counter-functional. ZT has moved to counter-functional almost instantly, and worse, the ideas and mentality of ZT are contagioning other systems (such as "homeland security", do you think the TSA would be so bad were it not for ZT-ish thought patterns?)

In economics there is Gresham's Law: Bad money drives out good. I.e., where there are two or more competing currencies, the "good" currency will be hoarded leaving only the "bad" currency n circulation. (Apologies to any economists reading this for oversimplification. I know it is a central tenet of economics that things should not be comprehensible ;-) This same principle often seems to crop up in other circumstances. It certainly seems operative in politics and bureaucracy.