The law
of unintended consequences, often
cited but rarely defined, is that actions of people, and especially of
governments, always have effects that are unanticipated or
"unintended." The concept of
unintended consequences is one of the building blocks of economics. Adam Smith's "invisible hand," the
most famous metaphor in social science, is an example of a positive unintended
consequence. Smith maintained that each
individual, seeking only his own gain, "is led by an invisible hand to
promote an end which was no part of his intention," that end being the
public interest. "It is not from
the benevolence of the butcher, or the baker, that we expect our dinner,"
Smith wrote, "but from regard to their own self interest." In 1692 John Locke, the English philosopher
and a forerunner of modern economists, urged the defeat of a parliamentary bill
designed to cut the maximum permissible rate of interest from 6 percent to 4
percent. Locke argued that instead of
benefiting borrowers, as intended, it would hurt them. People would find ways
to circumvent the law, with the costs of circumvention borne by borrowers. To the extent the law was obeyed, Locke
concluded, the chief results would be less available credit and a
redistribution of income away from "widows, orphans and all those who have
their estates in money." The first
and most complete analysis of the concept of unintended consequences was done
in 1936 by the American sociologist Robert K. Merton. In an influential article titled "The
Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action," Merton identified
five sources of unanticipated consequences. The first two, and the most pervasive, were
ignorance and error. Merton labeled the
third source the "imperious immediacy of interest." By that he was referring to instances in which
an individual wants the intended consequence of an action so much that he
purposefully chooses to ignore any unintended effects. (That type of willful ignorance is very
different from true ignorance.) A
nation, for example, might ban abortion on moral grounds even though children
born as a result of the policy may be unwanted and likely to be more dependent
on the state. The unwanted children are
an unintended consequence of banning abortions, but not an unforeseen one. "Basic values" was Merton's fourth
example. The Protestant ethic of hard
work and asceticism, he wrote, "paradoxically leads to its own decline
through the accumulation of wealth and possessions." His final case was the "self-defeating
prediction." Here he was referring
to the instances when the public prediction of a social development proves
false precisely because the prediction changes the course of history. For example, the warnings earlier in this
century that population growth would lead to mass starvation helped spur
scientific breakthroughs in agricultural productivity that have since made it
unlikely that the gloomy prophecy will come true. Merton later developed the flip side of this
idea, coining the phrase "the self-fulfilling prophecy." In a footnote to the 1936 article, he vowed to
write a book devoted to the history and analysis of unanticipated consequences.
By 1991, Merton, age eighty, had
produced six hundred pages of manuscript but still not completed the work. Social Security has helped alleviate poverty
among senior citizens. Many economists
argue, however, that it has carried a cost that goes beyond the payroll taxes
levied on workers and employers. Martin
Feldstein and others maintain that today's workers save less for their old age
because they know they will receive Social Security checks when they retire. If Feldstein and the others are correct, it
means that less savings are available, less investment takes place, and the
economy and wages grow more slowly than they would without Social Security. The law of unintended consequences is at work
always and everywhere. In 1968, for
instance, Vermont outlawed roadside billboards and large signs in order to
protect the state's pastoral vistas. One
unintended consequence was the appearance of large, bizarre
"sculptures" adjacent to businesses. An auto dealer commissioned a twelve-foot,
sixteen-ton gorilla, clutching a real Volkswagen Beetle. A carpet store is marked by a nineteen-foot
genie holding aloft a rolled carpet as he emerges from a smoking teapot. Other sculptures include a horse, a rooster,
and a squirrel in red suspenders. Rob
Norton https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/handouts/french/unintconseq.html
Nothing has just one consequence.
Consequences fan out in all directions over time. Life is like playing piano with oven mitts
on. You go to hit one key and others get
hit in the process. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ambigamy/201612/the-laws-unintended-consequences
In 1890, New Yorker Eugene Schieffelin wanted to look out his window and see the same kind
of birds in the sky that Shakespeare had seen.
Inspired by a mention of starlings in Henry VI, Schieffelin released 100
of the non-native birds in Central Park over two years. (He wasn’t acting alone--he had the support of
scientists and the American Acclimatization Society.) The birds didn’t just survive; they thrived
and bred like weeds. Unfortunately,
Schieffelin’s plan worked too well. Far,
far too well. The starlings multiplied
exponentially, spreading across America at an astonishing rate. Today, we don’t even know how many of them
live in the U.S., with official estimates ranging from 45 million to 200
million. Most, if not all, of them are
descended from Schieffelin’s initial 100 birds. The problem is that as an alien species, the
starlings wreak havoc because they were introduced into an ecosystem they were
not naturally part of and the local species had (and still have) no defense
against them. https://fs.blog/2018/02/unintended-consequences/
Traffic is a mess in Georgetown. The Washington, D.C. neighborhood didn't want
the subway in their area. Now their penalty is constant congestion. See also Five Examples of the Law of
Unintended Consequences by Mark J. Perry at http://www.aei.org/publication/five-examples-of-the-law-of-unintended-consequences/
Noah's Ark Pudding Asure is a cornucopia of
healthy ingredients like dried fruits, legumes and whole grain wheat that are
sweetened with sugar and fruit juices and cooked all together in one pot. This pudding traditionally contains apricots,
raisins, currants, figs, pine nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, chickpeas and navy beans to
name just a few ingredients. Some cooks
even add chestnuts, lima beans, bulgur wheat and slivers of fresh coconut. Almost anything goes. Turkish legend has it that the first version
of 'aşure' was made by Noah himself. After
weeks on the ark, the waters began to recede.
As food stocks dwindled, Noah decided to throw bits of everything he had
left on the ark into one pot. What he
got was a delicious pudding that kept he and his passengers well-fed until the
ark finally rested on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. Some say 'aşure'(aah-shoor-EY) is the oldest
dessert in the world. There is no set recipe for making Noah's ark
pudding. There are hundreds, if not
thousands of variations. Find recipe
serving six at https://www.thespruceeats.com/turkish-noahs-ark-pudding-3 See also Noah's Pudding at http://www.umass.edu/gso/rumi/ashura.pdf As a project, have a group of people bring
items of their choice and put everything together.
The Panama Papers are
11.5 million leaked documents
that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than
214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s,
were created by, and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015
by an anonymous source. The documents
contain personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public
officials that had previously been kept private. While offshore business
entities are legal (see Offshore Magic Circle),
reporters found that some of the Mossack Fonseca shell corporations were
used for illegal purposes, including fraud, tax evasion, and evading international
sanctions. "John
Doe", the whistleblower who leaked the documents to German
journalist Bastian Obermayer
from the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ),
remains anonymous, even to the journalists who worked on the
investigation. "My life is in
danger", he told them. In a May 6, 2016, statement, John Doe cited income inequality as
the reason for his action, and said he leaked the documents "simply
because I understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the
injustices they described". He
added that he had never worked for any government or intelligence agency and
expressed willingness to help prosecutors if granted immunity from prosecution after SZ verified that the statement did in fact come from the source for the
Panama Papers, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
posted the full document on its website.
SZ asked the ICIJ for help because of the amount of data involved. Journalists from 107 media organizations in 80
countries analyzed documents detailing the operations of the law firm. After
more than a year of analysis, the first news stories were published on April 3,
2016, along with 150 of the documents themselves. The
project represents an important milestone in the use of data journalism software tools and mobile collaboration. The documents were dubbed
the Panama Papers because of the country they were leaked from; however, the
Panamanian government expressed strong objections to the name over concerns
that it would tarnish the government's and country's image worldwide, as did
other entities in Panama and elsewhere.
This led to an advertising campaign some weeks after the leak, titled
"Panama, more than papers".
Some media outlets covering the story have used the name "Mossack
Fonseca papers". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers
In one of the most grating pop
culture collisions of all time, Canadian joke-popsters Barenaked Ladies wrote the
theme song for long-running sitcom The Big Bang Theory, and as a special send-off for the
May 16, 2019 series finale, the band unveiled a brand new version of the song. The new rendition features frontman Ed
Robertson performing solo with an acoustic guitar, presenting a slightly more
solemn version of the usually peppy tune.
Barenaked Ladies recently performed the new acoustic rendition of The
Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Sarah Murphy
Link to both versions of the song and watch the live performance at http://exclaim.ca/music/article/barenaked_ladies_recorded_a_new_version_of_the_big_bang_theory_theme_song_for_last_nights_finale
Herman Wouk
(pronounced WOKE), the versatile, Pulitzer Prize winning author of such
million-selling novels as “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Winds of War” died May
17, 2019 at 103. Wouk was just 10 days
shy of his 104th birthday and was working on a book until the end, said his
literary agent Amy Rennert. Rennert said
Wouk died in his sleep at his home in Palm Springs, California, where he
settled after spending many years in Washington, D.C. Among the last of the major writers to emerge
after World War II and first to bring Jewish stories to a general audience, he
had a long, unpredictable career that included gag writing for radio star Fred
Allen, historical fiction and a musical co-written with Jimmy Buffett. He won the Pulitzer in 1952 for “The Caine
Mutiny,” the classic Navy drama that made the unstable Captain Queeg, with the
metal balls he rolls in his hand and his talk of stolen strawberries, a symbol
of authority gone mad. A film
adaptation, starring Humphrey Bogart, came out in 1954 and Wouk turned the
courtroom scene into the play “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.” Other highlights included “Don’t Stop the
Carnival,” which Wouk and Buffett adapted into a musical, and his two-part
World War II epic, “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance,” both of which
Wouk himself adapted for a 1983, Emmy Award-winning TV miniseries starring
Robert Mitchum. “The Winds of War” received some of the highest ratings in TV
history and Wouk’s involvement covered everything from the script to commercial
sponsors. Hillel Italie
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2100
May 20, 2019
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