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“The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions”: 30 Times People Wanted Nothing But Good Yet It All Ended Badly, As Told In This Online Group
Researchers have not yet figured out who exactly first said the famous phrase: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," but almost all of them agree on one thing - this sentence is damn true! For thousands of years that humanity has existed, there have always been people who sincerely wished to benefit others - all or only partially. The concept, as always, was nothing but wonderful, but the results were much worse.
This happens at all levels, from, for example, Thanos, who, in order to implement a truly brilliant and outstanding idea of solving the issue associated with overpopulation in the universe, chose the most unsuccessful means to achieve it, up to your neighbor, who, in their frantic desire to improve their surroundings, comes into conflict with those around them. In fact, doing good deeds is not that easy.
When a few days ago in the AskReddit community the user u/WorldsBiggestNarcist asked readers the question: "'The road to hell is paved with good intentions,' what is a real life example of this?", they probably didn't even expect such popularity. Now the resulting thread has over 36.2K upvotes and almost 15.6K various comments, where the given examples are immediately and heatedly discussed. In other words, all the signs of a viral thread are present.
Out of pure good intentions as well, Bored Panda has collected the most popular, interesting and unexpected examples and stories of the original thread in this brilliant compilation, so all you have to do now is to scroll it to the very end, upvote the narratives and ideas you like best, and of course add your own real-life or historic examples in the comments below. And we, on our part, genuinely hope these good intentions will bring no less good things to readers this time!
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My parents thought that if they brought us kids to church every week (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and **all** day Sunday), had us go to private religious schools, and made us volunteer for religious organizations, we'd stay out of trouble and be as zealous as they are. As soon as each of us could, we ran away and never looked back. One of my sisters won't attend a funeral if its in a church!
Zero tolerance in schools. Now the bullied kids are being punished.
I knew someone who was punched in the face in school. No warning, someone just walked up to him and broke his nose. He was suspended for a week. He still has breathing problems 20 years later.
In every War, even the most righteous ones, there were members of the “good side” that were rapists, sadists, plain old vile.
Yes, sadly war crimes were also commited by Allies, US and USSR triops on Nazi Germany during WWII
The invention of social media.
When Tom was working at Friendster, I genuinely believe he wanted to build something that allowed people to socialise and communicate in a new and modern way.
On paper, early MySpace is a brilliant concept that made a lot of people realise the potential of the internet.
This concept was that mutilated and turned into what social media is today. Quite possibly the single most socially damaging invention that ever happened. Far away from bringing people closer together, it has turned into a tool that is tearing people further apart, making them feel more disconnected with society than ever- and instead of democratising discussion, it has put even more power into the hands of the elite.
The introduction of non-native species as a means of solving an environmental problem.
The introduction of Kudzu for erosion control. It has become invasive and girdles and kills plant life above ground without establishing proper roots, therefore causing soil erosion.
GOATS GOATS GOATS. The good thing about goats is that they are domesticated animals and can be rounded up at the end of the day and taken back to the farm or wherever they are being kept. Unlike wile animals that will just grow and spread.
I knew a guy that saw a kid trip into the street, since a car was coming the guy grabbed the kid by the arm picked him up and dropped him on the sidewalk. The car missed the kid but clipped the guy and broke a couple ribs.
The car kept going.
The mom of the kid who wasn't paying attention only saw the guy drop the kid on the sidewalk, she proceeded to accuse him of kidnapping and started hitting him. This was on a busy NYC street corner.
He didn't have medical insurance and had to use a free clinic which he couldn't get to until hours of questioning by the police. He had to walk there on his own.
He missed his classes and his teacher didn't buy his story saying it wasn't realistic enough, he was not allowed to retake an exam he missed.
He was already suffering from social anxiety and questioning if he had enough self worth to keep going.
Doesn't pay to do the right thing anymore. Has not for a long time truth be told. Everybody is so fucken sue happy thinking it will net them millions in cash.
Lobotomy
Surgery to fix the mentally unwell
It sounds so good: no more reliance on medication, you’re good from now on.
But it didn’t work.
The outcomes were awful and it was frequently done without any sort of consent
It all could have been shut down fairly quickly if people were honest about what was happening, but careers and money was at stake….so many unnecessarily suffered
Once upon a time, I found a wallet on the beach.
Having lost my own more than once, and not having it returned to me, I am aware that it is a stressful life event.
So, my first thought was how to return it quickly.
Looking through the contents, the owner was from out of state and there was no contact information other than the drivers license. Aside from that, only a few credit cards and some cash.
Not knowing how long ago the owner had left, I thought let's just sit here for a while and maybe he will return looking for it since it is the first thing I would do.
After a couple hours of fun and sun we needed to move on; my next best idea was to turn it into the local police station which we found easily enough just down the street.
What I thought would be a quick in and out turned into a full on interrogation session during which I was, at one point, accused of theft/robbery.
It was a bizarre experience, to say the least, which wasted an hour of our day.
Something similar happened to me. I found a wallet in a hotel car park early one morning so went in and handed it to reception. However they said they couldn't take it so I had a look to see if there was any ID and found a work pass with an email address. Emailed the guy explaining I'd found his wallet and told him I'd be in work till 4 so call me to collect it. Calls me about an hour later and then starts grilling me about how and where I found it. He wasn't aggressive but you could tell from his tone that he thought I'd taken it rather than found it. Yeah, makes total sense I'd take it and then contact the owner to say I had it.
Most moral panics?
Stranger Danger: convincing people in the 1970-90s that hundreds of thousands of American children were being yoinked into random cars by evil strangers each year, while downplaying and underfunding the resources that could actually help decrease child abduction.
Child abductions not only never came anywhere near those huge numbers, but it was and still is nearly always a custodial issue or a very close family member. Teaching people to be wary of kidnapping is great; directing all their fears toward vague spooky strangers and not helping people learn how to *actually* prevent kidnapping is kinda s**t.
Purity culture and the *I Kissed Dating Goodbye* book/movement. It was a response to hookup culture and the "free love" movement of the 60's and 70's, and all of *its* downsides and dangers. But it left people with no idea how to have healthy relationships, sexual dysfunction, and worse. (Not to mention, a net *increase* in STIs and teen pregnancy, as they never learned how to protect themselves and mitigate risks.)
Those parents who solve all their kids issues and don't make them "stress" about consequences of their own actions. Their kids just turn into inept and entitled adults who still act 15 for decades and not only have a harder life for themselves but make life miserable for everyone around them too.
Edit:
1)yes it's bad to go too far the other way, raising a child is a balancing act, I get that, but ignoring a child isn't usually from good intentions while spoiling them often is and that was the prompt :)
2) if this sounds like it happened to you, I promise you that you can get yourself out of the cycle. It sucks and it hurts and it's unpleasant, but you can do it if you want to. Get ready to fail, and then keep trying anyway. Persistence will be a new skill, and you will be bad at it. And that's okay.
You didn't do this to yourself, you don't need to feel shame. Digging yourself out however is something you'll be doing yourself, and you can take pride in every step you make it the right direction.
We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions.
Haiti did not have cholera. A disastrous earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, after the earthquake humanitarian forces from the UN arrived to help, and the Nepalese contingent reintroduced Cholera to Haiti. This epidemic has since infected approximately 850,000 people and killed over 10,000.
Who has said it wasn't brought on by the relief workers? It was documented and caused the WHO to change policy on jetting emergency workers from one area to another without a wait period and medical vetting first.
George W Bush admin created subsidies on corn to promote the production of ethanol to be used in fuel, etc. Better for the environment and so forth. Couple of downstream effects:
1) Ethanol in fuel lowers the fuel efficiency, so you have to buy gas more frequently (more of an inconvenience, but that's why fuel with no ethanol is usually slightly more expensive).
2) Corn sold for other purposes than ethanol didn't qualify for the subsidies, so there was a strong financial incentive to sell to ethanol produces instead of for food. This drove the price of food corn (and food that uses corn-derived ingredients) up, affecting poor people the most.
3) The financial incentives were so strong that farmers were buying up cheap land in areas that were very unsuitable for corn production or switching away from crops that would grow more easily if they couldn't afford more land. In western Kansas, corn needs to be heavily irrigated in order to grow. There is an enormous aquifer that stretches from South Dakota to the Texas panhandle. Increased irrigation combine with a years-long drought drained the aquifer to the point that the city of Hays has to truck their water in.
Edited to add line breaks.
Edited again to say thank you for the awardsand the likes, kind strangers!
People also forget that Bush did this as a compromise with Democrats who wanted it, and it was pushed by groups like Sierra Club who had been taken in by special interests groups manipulating enviro groups (Happens more than you think). Many Republicans were against this at the time, and voted against it (though against it bc they wanted that subsidies for natural gas exploration). It was a case of bad science and enviro groups getting manipulated again by special interests groups, and in the end was worse for the environment.
A man named Dr. Spock wrote a handbook for childrearing. It was widely circulated and well received. Many of our parents likely got their childrearing advice from this book.
In it he recognized that babies throw up a lot and therefore recommended newborns be laid on their stomachs to sleep. Unknowingly, this would result in the accidental smothering deaths of thousands of newborns. A huge number of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) cases can be laid at his feet.
To this day the back to sleep campaign is still fighting to update parents on what we now know: newborns should sleep on their backs until they can reliably roll over for themselves.
The recommendation for prone sleeping arose out of observations in neonatal intensive care in the 1960s. It was found that premature babies with lung issues did better being placed on their stomachs, as that position improved the blood flow to the lungs-it was identical to the situation with the covid pandemic where the sickest patients were put into the prone position. This then made people think that if prone sleeping helped premature babies, it must also help normal babies. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be true. In the UK, a famous TV presenter, Anne Diamond, lost a baby to SIDS in the early 80s. She started investigating and found research from Australia showing back sleeping was safer. Just 4 months after her baby's death, she'd made a documentary about it and that triggered a national public health campaign to promote back sleeping-she undoubtedly helped to save the lives of innumerable babies over the years.
I recall hearing that the person behind the 'like' function of Facebook legitimately just saw it as a nice way for people to show others what they like, or a way to positively react on things - it turned out that it had/has a huge negative impact on social congnition, such as teenagers, especially girls unfortunately, developing depression.
Since the abysmal performance of American schools has been in the news recently, "No Child Left Behind" and it's replacement "Every Student Succeeds Act"
America has never had really good public education, but it used to be serviceable. NCLB came in to try and create some milestones and accountability. Instead it made the problem worse. ECSS came in and tried to address it's problems, but changed the stuff that wasn't the problem and left the bad parts unscathed.
Taken all together 57% of highschool GRADUATES can't read at a 7th grade reading level and over a quarter are functionally illiterate.
Well one big statement is false, the second paragraph. Back in 1971 the US was ranked 3rd in the world in Math and 5th in reading (and top 10 in every educational category). Why 1971? because that was the year Nixon created the US Dept of Education, to "fix" education so America would be number 1, and instead we went downhill, education became heavily bureaucracitzed, and more. Also its 1/3 of High School graduates read at a 7th grade level or lower, mostly inner city public schools where the numbers is over 50%, because we neglect those schools.
Federally backed student loans. Once money was guaranteed, colleges jacked up tuition and continue to do so, with no end in sight.
Once the money was guaranteed *state governments withdrew public support for universities, thereby putting the burden entirely on students. There, I fixed it.
A company in a town I used to live in “employed” a lot of people from the local disability support center, these people had mental disabilities such as Down syndrome and this company “employed them” to come in a few hours a week and “work” - and by work I mean little tasks that gave these employees lives a sense of meaning, purpose and structure. Things like folding pamphlets and stamping papers and they would be paid a small amount for their time, not minimum wage but enough for them to be absolutely thrilled with their “pay” from working.
The government made some changes so that these people HAD to be paid minimum wage (I assume to avoid people being taking advantage of), I am sure they had the best intentions but this company, and many others could not afford to pay all of these people minimum wage and so they had to cut back to only letting 1-2 people work instead of all of the people who were benefiting from “working” for them initially.
It was really sad especially because these people did not understand why they were not allowed to work anymore.
where I live the govt pays 2/3 of the salary to meet min wage. That way stores can afford to hire them to do things like stock shelves (they tend to work much much slower), but also saves the govt a ton bc it keeps them active and not in govt expensive runs programs during the day
Thomas Midgley
A Great scientist. He help to get rid of the problem of petrol causing 'knocking' in engines.... By adding lead to Gasoline
Then he turned his endevours to reducing the amount of Toxic and flammable gases used in Air con and refrigeration systems....... and invented CFC's
Thomas Midgley "came up with the non-brilliant idea of adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline --despite lead being known as a toxic chemical-- to solve the problem of engine knocking, that is when fuel burns unevenly in the engine's cylinders of an automobile causing noise and potential damage to the engine's cylinder walls and pistons." He knew it was poisonous, bu went a head with it anyway. It's estimated he cause the premature death of 1.2 million people.
My mom called my Christian university (that 17 year old me attended by my parents behest) to inform the school that I was smoking weed, drinking, and having sex. She thought because it was a Christian university, they would put me into a counseling program to get me “back on track.” The school told me to pack my bags, leave immediately and they rescinded the 80% scholarship I obtained, causing me to owe the full 100% for that semester which I’m still paying off a decade later.
- Edit: this comment is getting a lot of traction so I figured I’d add another nugget. After getting kicked out of college, my 18th birthday was the next month. My parents somehow (my dad is a tech nerd so he could hack any account I had) found out that I was going to have a party at a friend’s house to celebrate. There was alcohol and weed at the party. Low and behold my parents called the state police and alerted them of the party. I and 3 other friends got arrested that night. Most charges were dropped or expunged eventually.
- Edit 2: thank you to everyone for your responses! There’s too many comments and dms to reply to so I will answer some here:
- For those saying I got what I deserved or my mom was justified - It takes 2 to tango. My choices played a role for sure. This story was a response to the prompt about good intentions going sideways. My mom had good intentions when she alerted the school of my activity. She didn’t want me to get kicked out and still be paying for it years later but that’s what happened. I don’t claim sainthood in this scenario. I broke the rules knowingly.
- How did my mom know about the partying/sex? I visited home for a weekend and she went through my bags while I was in the shower. She found condoms and a bottle of liquor. She already knew I’d been smoking weed here and there for a couple years at this point.
- I said my dad “hacked” my online accounts to discover I was throwing a party. Excuse my lack of intelligent tech vocabulary there. He had a program or software where he could track key strokes to then discover passwords to my accounts or something along those lines. Similar to what they used to monitor the computers in my high school.
- How is my relationship with my parents now? It’s great. I have forgiven them completely. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel some resentment now and again. Their choices (and mine even more so) made my life very difficult. At my lowest point, I made a plan to kill myself. All of my dreams and potential seemed crippled by debt and a lack of gainful employment opportunities. I lived in a town (technically a village) of 300 people in rural north east, USA. Thankfully, before I was able to harm myself too badly or permanently, I had a “mystical” experience. During that experience, I saw my situation, my parents, myself, and reality from a perspective that was not my own regular waking consciousness. I saw that I could choose to perpetuate pain and suffering by holding onto anger, hate, and resentment for my parents and myself for the choices we made. I saw it was possible to feel joy, to forgive, to repair, to heal. My life didn’t instantly become better the next day, but my perspective shifted to where I wanted to repair the damage that was done. “Anger is the 2nd wound your enemy inflicts upon you” was very applicable in my situation. I could let the anger and hurt dictate what my life would look like or I could choose to cultivate joy, come what may. Holding onto anger and resentment was another form of allowing my parents to control me. The real “power move” is to forgive. To release the hold your “enemy” (for lack of a better term) has over your life through your unhappiness. Behind true forgiveness is where we find freedom. Much love, Reddit.
OP is a far better human being than I am. I applaud them and admire them. I don't think I will ever be able to forgive my mother for a childhood of beatings and abuse, but I'm cognizant enough to recognize in others the ability to forgive, and I am jealous XD
On a personal scale trying to help a really drunk person. I'm a woman and talkative and I started talking to another woman at a bar who was really really drunk. She told me her friends deserted her so I said she could hang out with me and my friends as it was my birthday (to keep an eye on her and because she seemed fun). Then she started falling off of chairs and spilling drinks so I encouraged her to get a cab. She started crying how everyone hates her as I was helping her outside but agreed to go home. I got a cab, paid for it because she was a mess, and all of the sudden she got really violent and ended up kicking me in the face trying to get out of the cab because she 'wasn't done'. She pushed me and told me to f**k off but ultimately sat back down in the cab crying.
We had already exchanged numbers so the next day she texted me apologizing profusely and asking if we could stay friends. I told her I appreciated her apology but no thanks.
I will always try to help people where I can but that turned me off from going above and beyond. Plus, you can rarely rationalize with really drunk and upset people.
I lost a long time friend because of this sort of behaviour. I was going through a lot of my own issues and eventually I just couldn't handle her problems anymore. I feel terrible for her, but she refused to get real help and was just an emotional vampire. That was a little over ten years ago, and as of this past year, she is still behaving this way and has lost every single one of her friends because of it.
The D.A.R.E program
Keeping on trying to help someone so desperately that you lose sight of your own actions and end up hurting everyone around you by neglecting your own health and becoming overly defensive of that person, even insulting and attacking others for them.
This can happen too fast when you fall in love with a bad person
Avoid allowing the *wants of others to take precedence over your *needs. It is the essence of codependency. It's toxic.
Qualified immunity
How was this anything other than asscovering for cops from the begining?
People giving up all their rights because they believe it will solve problems
Ben Franklin had something to say about that. To paraphrase, he said those who would give up their freedom for a little safety deserve neither freedom nor safety.
Note: this post originally had 45 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Henrietta Lacks, aka Helen Lane aka HeLa. Google it.
Such a problem. She should have been more informed of what was happening and at the very least she and her family should have been compensated a LOT. But it also has helped so many people....
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Anti-bullying day is the world's biggest load of woke BS. One day. But go ahead, be mean the other 364 days. Don't ever invite anyone to share your lunch table. Don't practice empathy. By the time you get to bullying, you've lost. You're locking the barn door after the horse is gone. It's just a bs day to make people feel like they are doing good, but they are NOT.
Right now, reusable plastic bags are just becoming absurd. Legislation was passed that limited single use bags, so now they make thicker bags with more plastic and label them as reusable. But then they get used once (for like online ordering) and getting them recycled or reused is next to impossible because stores don't want to and people are lazy.
In the UK you have to pay for plastic bags now, its only 10p but it has reduced the amount of carrier bags being used and the amount ending up in landfill has decreased exponentially
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Any religious fanatic.. Take taliban for example. Most Taliban is verily believe following their leader ensure them to heaven. They believe on leaving any worldly thing toward their mullah teaching. Never in their mind that actually they has been misleaded very far
Henrietta Lacks, aka Helen Lane aka HeLa. Google it.
Such a problem. She should have been more informed of what was happening and at the very least she and her family should have been compensated a LOT. But it also has helped so many people....
Load More Replies... Anti-bullying day is the world's biggest load of woke BS. One day. But go ahead, be mean the other 364 days. Don't ever invite anyone to share your lunch table. Don't practice empathy. By the time you get to bullying, you've lost. You're locking the barn door after the horse is gone. It's just a bs day to make people feel like they are doing good, but they are NOT.
Right now, reusable plastic bags are just becoming absurd. Legislation was passed that limited single use bags, so now they make thicker bags with more plastic and label them as reusable. But then they get used once (for like online ordering) and getting them recycled or reused is next to impossible because stores don't want to and people are lazy.
In the UK you have to pay for plastic bags now, its only 10p but it has reduced the amount of carrier bags being used and the amount ending up in landfill has decreased exponentially
Load More Replies... Any religious fanatic.. Take taliban for example. Most Taliban is verily believe following their leader ensure them to heaven. They believe on leaving any worldly thing toward their mullah teaching. Never in their mind that actually they has been misleaded very far
