Yes I know, your least-favorite idea goes here. But seriously, someone must have come up with the concept before. Like a bad get-rich-quick scheme could fall into this category, where joining the scheme makes people lose money and become more desperate, so they become more likely to do desperate things like invest more in the scheme. But it can apply to a number of other bad ideas.
Springtime for Hitler. Somewhat fits. It’s an intentional failure that succeeded.
Popular boondoggle is a term we used to use at work. I’ve never herd it used outside that job though.
The term isn’t quite as specific as you want, but it sounds like a positive feedback loop? (the linked article even gives ponzi schemes as an example)
I world call that “failing upward” which is fucking up your job such that you get a promotion.
It can be a thing for more skilled labor jobs. You csn be just okay at say… running machine shop equipment. You break more stuff and make more blem parts than most of the people in the shop. But it seems like you have a grasp on the overall processes and can type well.
Boom now you’re not working on machines but managing machinists. Ordering what they need, stat tracking, scheduling, product contracts etc.
Sunk cost fallacy is probably the most obvious one that springs to mind. Not unlike gambling in a sense, people feel they just need one big payout to win it all back and then some, so they keep betting, hoping that this time things will go in their favour.
Perhaps the closest term is “cognitive dissonance.” I don’t think current usage best fits your description, although the original event that inspired the term certainly does.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html
Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult that believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen.
While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to “put it down to experience,” committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).
