People are complicated. Life is complicated. Ecosystems are complicated. Alex Tabarrok writes, “The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system.” This so often happens in any kind of government program, regulation, law or attempt to control something within a complex system with a relatively simple action. Things will happen that we didn’t anticipate.
Examples abound:
Often, as with some of these, the outcome can be the opposite of what you intended, known as the cobra effect.
Controlling complex systems is difficult.
Thanks to Bruce Howard for supporting this one.
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