go to pot

AsimovのI, ROBOTを読んでいます。

U.S. Robots had to get the bugs out of the multiple robot, and there were plenty of bugs, and there are always at least half a dozen bugs left for the field-testing. So they waited and relaxed until the drawing-board men and the slide-rule boys had said "OK!" And now he and Powell were out on the asteroid and it was not OK. He repeated that a dozen times, with a face that had gone beety, "For the love of Pete, Greg, get realistic. What's the use of adhering to the letter of the specifications and watching the test go to pot? It's about time you got the red tape out of your pants and went to work."
慣用句らしい "go to pot" の意味を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Deteriorate through neglect.: the foundry was allowed to go to pot in the seventies

・Collins Dictionary: If something goes to pot, it loses all its good qualities because nobody looks after it or works at it.: The neighbourhood really is going to pot.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: to be damaged or spoiled because people are not working hard on it or caring for it: I'm afraid I've let the garden go to pot this summer.
語源も知りたくなったので調べるとThe Word Detectiveに次の記述がありました。
All my little clients had "gone to pot" in the figurative sense meaning "deteriorated or destroyed," but I would never have dreamt of them "going to pot" in the original sense of the term. Around 1542, when the phrase first appeared, "to go to pot" was to be cut up like chunks of meat destined for the stew pot. Such a stew was usually the last stop for the remnants of a once substantial cut of meat or poultry, so "going to pot" made perfect sense as a metaphor for anything, from a national economy to a marriage, that had seen better days. Early uses of the metaphor were usually in the form "go to the pot."