A Small Talk On The Law of Unintended Consequences
You aren't God!
You aren't a God-like entity!
Sounds obvious when you say it like that, right?
But when people and groups of people like governments or bureaucracies or companies start acting they don't act like they treat the first 2 sentences seriously. They think the universe work the way they intend it to work! They think everything is going to work the way they predict them to.
Who are they? Did they design the universe? Nope. Have they reached some omniscience like state? Nope. We're a tiny speck in a galaxy that's a tiny spec in the universe. Funny part is that's just what we already know. History has proven that we don't know a lot.
Size Comparison
That Brings Us To Title
The law of unintended consequences is a term that is commonly used in sociology and economics. The term was popularized by Robert King Merton in his 1936 article titled “he Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action”. The usage of the idea can be traced centuries back and the works of John Locke and Adam Smith refers to the same concept.
Frédéric Bastiat also talked about “the seen and the unseen” consequences of actions. These consequences can be benefits, drawbacks or perverse results like the Streisand effect or the cobra effect named after their respective incidents.
Cobra Effect
Few Examples
You can look at the secure passwords that made with strings of numbers, symbols and letters that are more secure than easily memorized passwords. Due to the passwords being hard to memorize, some users write them down and store them at unsecure locations defeating the original purpose.
18th Amendment to the US Constitution that banned alcohol is a historical example of unintended consequences. The prohibition led people to get addicted to drugs in place of alcohol and criminals took over alcohol production which led to increased crime. The government lost millions of tax revenue and the prohibition was extremely costly to enforce.
1 Of Best Answers I've Seen On Quora
That's a one important link right there. You'll learn a bunch of stuff from there. If you've been interested in Butterfly Effect in real life - those Quora answers could provide some seriously good examples. I'm not going to copy/paste everything here. If you want you can try archiving the info 😉 I'll drop a few quotes:
doctors, in the pursuit of medical knowledge that could save thousands of lives, conducted autopsy after autopsy, which, in turn, led to the loss of thousands of lives.
Ever go on a diet, intentionally skip meals, and actually end up gaining inches? Especially around your gut? This is a good example of the law of unintended consequences in action. Many of us know the law: if you want to lose fat, eat less. However, a recent study conducted at Ohio State University indicates that skipping meals can lead to abdominal weight gain—not the intended goal.
Unintended consequence: Screwing up the native fish population in Flathead Lake.
Method: Trying to feed them.
That's just few simple cases. There's a lot for you to read. These are things every researcher, economist, CEO and just about anybody making decisions should know about. You are not God. Things won't happen just because you intended them. The universe is complex. Keep that in mind!