[Verse 1: Delhi, Under the Raj] Dust on the road in old Delhi town, Venomous shadows were slithering down. The British commanders were frozen in fright, Said, "A snake in the courtyard won’t do for the night! We'll solve this with commerce, we'll solve this with coin, Bring us a carcass, and silver you’ll join!" A shilling a serpent, an open-and-shut case: Reward every hunter, clear out the whole place. [Chorus] Oh, you reward the effect, but you miss out the game, The rules that you write won’t behave quite the same! You think it's a line: pay for fewer, get less, But human ambition outsmarts the distress. It’s the Cobra Effect, where the logic bends back, And the cure that you paid for invites the attack. [Verse 2: The Breeding Farms] The hunters were clever, the math didn’t lie: Why track in the brush when a hunter might die? Why chase down a phantom through bramble and stone, When you can raise fifty right inside your own home? So basements turned quiet, and terracotta clay jars Were stacked in the alleys beneath desert stars. Feed 'em some mice, let the eggs hatch in rows, Bring heads to the colonel and watch the cash grow! [Chorus] Oh, you reward the effect, but you miss out the game, The rules that you write won’t behave quite the same! You think it's a line: pay for fewer, get less, But human ambition outsmarts the distress. It’s the Cobra Effect, where the logic bends back, And the cure that you paid for invites the attack. [Verse 3: The Great Release] The ledger was bleeding, the treasury cried, "How can there be millions if all of them died?" The governor gasped when he uncovered the scam, And closed down the window without giving a damn. "No silver for snakes! Cancel the scheme!" And with one stroke of ink, shattered the dream. Now worthless and hungry, the serpents took room, The breeders dumped thousands straight into the gloom. The streets overflowed with twice what was there— A venomous tide in the hot summer air. [Bridge: The Core Lesson & Other Case Files] We expect simple lines in a delicate web, Think human behavior just flows to our ebb. Reward X, get more X? That isn’t the plan— They won't chase your goal, they'll exploit what they can! (Fast, rhythmic patter) Like Hanoi in the spring of nineteen-oh-two: A bounty for rat tails, so what did they do? They chopped off the tails and let blind rodents breed! Like paying the coders for each line they write, You end up with bloated, slow software at night! Like rewarding the doctors for tests that they run, The bills hit the ceiling before healing's done! [Guitar Solo / Rhythmic Clapping] [Chorus] Oh, you reward the effect, but you miss out the game, The rules that you write won’t behave quite the same! You think it's a line: pay for fewer, get less, But human ambition outsmarts the distress. It’s the Cobra Effect, where the logic bends back, And the cure that you paid for invites the attack. [Outro] So check your incentives before you deploy, Lest the metric you treasure be what you destroy. Watch the tall grass... Mind the back door... You paid for no cobras... Now there's thousands more.
