Unintended consequences

As Andrew S. Skinner puts it: "The individual undertaker (entrepreneur), seeking the most efficient allocation of resources, contributes to overall economic efficiency; the merchant's reaction to price signals helps to ensure that the allocation of resources accurately reflects the structure of consumer preferences; and the drive to better our condition contributes to economic growth.

[6][7] While discerning between the forces that generate changes in nature and those that generate changes in history in his discussion of Ludwig Feuerbach, Friedrich Engels touched on the idea of (apparent) unintended consequences: In nature [...] there are only blind, unconscious agencies acting upon one another, [...] In the history of society, on the contrary, the actors are all endowed with consciousness, are men acting with deliberation or passion, working towards definite goals; nothing happens without a conscious purpose, without an intended aim.

[...]Thus quinine would cease to be a good if the diseases it serves to cure should disappear, since the only need with the satisfaction of which it is causally connected would no longer exist.

The inhabitants of quinine-producing countries, who currently earn their livings by cutting and peeling cinchona trees, would suddenly find that not only their stocks of cinchona bark, but also, in consequence, their cinchona trees, the tools and appliances applicable only to the production of quinine, and above all the specialized labor services, by means of which they previously earned their livings, would at once lose their goods-character, since all these things would, under the changed circumstances, no longer have any causal relationship with the satisfaction of human needs.Economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek (1899 – 1992) is another key figure in the Austrian School of Economics who is notable for his comments on unintended consequences.

[18] The development of this system of interactions would allow the progress of society,[19] and individuals would carry it out without knowing all its implications, given the dispersion (or lack of concentration) of information.

[22] For Hayek and the Austrian School, the number of individuals involved in the process of creating a social order defines the type of unintended consequence:[23] Sociologist Robert K. Merton popularised this concept in the twentieth century.

"[26] More recently, the law of unintended consequences has come to be used as an adage or idiomatic warning that an intervention in a complex system tends to create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes.

[33] The creation of "no-man's lands" during the Cold War, in places such as the border between Eastern and Western Europe, and the Korean Demilitarized Zone, has led to large natural habitats.

[34][35][36] The sinking of ships in shallow waters during wartime has created many artificial coral reefs, which can be scientifically valuable and have become an attraction for recreational divers.

This led to the deliberate sinking of retired ships for the purpose of replacing coral reefs lost to global warming and other factors.

For instance, aspirin, a pain reliever, is also an anticoagulant that can help prevent heart attacks and reduce the severity and damage from thrombotic strokes.

Famously, the drug Viagra was developed to lower blood pressure, with its use for treating erectile dysfunction being discovered as a side effect in clinical trials.

The implementation of a profanity filter by AOL in 1996 had the unintended consequence of blocking residents of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England, from creating accounts because of a false positive.

(the more a transportation method is uncommonly sighted, the likelier it could be deemed to be accident prone) Research by Vulcan, et al. found that the reduction in juvenile cyclists was because the youths considered wearing a bicycle helmet unfashionable.

[50][51][52][53] In CIA jargon, "blowback" describes the unintended, undesirable consequences of covert operations, such as the funding of the Afghan Mujahideen and the destabilization of Afghanistan contributing to the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

[68] Risk compensation, or the Peltzman effect, occurs after implementation of safety measures intended to reduce injury or death (e.g. bike helmets, seatbelts, etc.).

[dubious – discuss][69][70] It was thought that adding south-facing conservatories to British houses would reduce energy consumption by providing extra insulation and warmth from the sun.

This in turn increased the danger to uninvolved civilians, who in the past would have been out of the line of fire because of armies' aversion of using higher-risk weaponry in densely populated areas.

[88] The perceived ability to operate precision weaponry from afar (where in the past heavy munitions or troop deployment would have been needed) also led to the expansion of the list of potential targets.

[dubious – discuss] For example, almost all environmental problems, from chemical pollution to global warming, are the unexpected consequences of the application of modern technologies.

Traffic congestion, deaths and injuries from car accidents, air pollution, and global warming are unintended consequences of the invention and large scale adoption of the automobile.

Hospital infections are the unexpected side-effect of antibiotic resistance, and even human population growth leading to environmental degradation is the side effect of various technological (i.e., agricultural and industrial) revolutions.