There is also another related distinction between optimisation that assumes that current investments in some cause (e.g. the mitigation of some risk) will stay the same (or change in line with some simplistic extrapolation of current trends), and optimisation that assumes that other people will reoptimise their investments due to new evidence (e.g. warning shots). I wrote a post about that in the context of existential risk some years back. Jon Elster argues that we generally underrate the extent that people’s reoptimise their actions in the light of a change of circumstances, whether they are endogeneous/due to our own actions (what you are talking about) or exogeneous events (what I am talking about). He calls it the younger sibling syndrome.
There is also another related distinction between optimisation that assumes that current investments in some cause (e.g. the mitigation of some risk) will stay the same (or change in line with some simplistic extrapolation of current trends), and optimisation that assumes that other people will reoptimise their investments due to new evidence (e.g. warning shots). I wrote a post about that in the context of existential risk some years back. Jon Elster argues that we generally underrate the extent that people’s reoptimise their actions in the light of a change of circumstances, whether they are endogeneous/due to our own actions (what you are talking about) or exogeneous events (what I am talking about). He calls it the younger sibling syndrome.