Talk:Unintended consequences/Archive 1

Topics from 2004-2006

Wasn't ...

Wasn't the phrase "unintended consequences" popularized by Karl Popper's book The Open Society and Its Enemies in the 1940s? If so, maybe that should be mentioned in this article. -- Mike Hardy

The article I read said it was originated by Robert K. Merton. Spalding 22:01, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

I added Robert K. Merton as the originator. I think he preceded Karl Popper, but I didn't research it very thoroughly, since it is very common in web searches that the idea originated with Merton. Spalding 17:40, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

examples

i think some of the examples should be removed for the following reasons...

Gun Control - as far as i can see there's still no reference for this. there are numerous reason why crime is higher in new jersey and Washington DC than Switzerland's and Vermont, to focus on it being an unintended consequence of gun control is, i believe, misleading. This example should be removed?

Aid to poor countries - while aid to poor country many increase poverty i don't believe it is for the reason stated. i read (although i can't find the reference!) that poverty increases birth rates as people have more kids in the hope that some survive. the idea that people in countries reliant on aid 'breed' as much as the resource allow is, i think, nonsense. again this example should be removed?

there are surely plenty of examples to give people an idea of what "unintended consequences" are with out these examples which seem to have an 'agenda'

firearm ownership

"In countries where firearm ownership is or was recently legal, restrictions on legal ownership of firearms has been associated with increases in personal crimes as criminals have less to fear from victims who are more likely to be unarmed."

I support Gun Rights, yet I have never heard credible claims to support the above. I would like to for this claim to be documented. All that would be necessary for this section of the article to stand would be one case where this is true. If such a case cannot be presented, I would like to see it removed until such evidence is provided.

LegCircus 20:05, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

Saddam

The example is out of place. Saddam never attacked the United States in any way.

Low Quality of Article

maybe it's just me, but i think this article seems original research-y and never really gets at the nub of the issue - the law of unintended consequences (as I understood it - maybe I'm wrong) is that a programme intended to have a certain corrective social effect in the community and which (ipso facto) doesn't reflect the current interests of the society when put out to general application in that society will tend to have, predominantly, another unintended effect whcih more properly reflects the values of that society. It's not just that any action has at least one unintended consequence. So, as the classic example, the imposition of a minimum wage is intended to make the poorest members of society better off, but instead it creates unemployment and/or drives up the cost of living, making those members actually worse off. There is clearly material (Merton, Levitt etc) which could and should be used to cite examples. Many of the examples cited, such as Royal hunting forests, and coral reefs made of sunk warships, are simply silly. -- ElectricRay 23:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

If you had a reference for the idea that the unintended consequence "more properly reflects the values of society", it could add a lot to the page. A lot of people seem to think it just means "attempts to solve social problems always make the problem worse", which is too simplistic. Meanwhile, I rewrote the section on "Causes", with a reference to Merton's paper. The previous version had more than one cause listed as "most common" (I assume that means it was written by several people who didn't read what they were adding to). -Rbean 21:58, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing; if one doesn't agree with a term or concept, don't try to write a Wiki entry about something you don't agree with. It won't go well. 70.61.22.110 19:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)Ubiquitousnewt

Unintended consequences are often the result of looking either at the perceived costs ignoring the possible benefits or the benefits ignoring the costs, and starting an action or policy that gives the opposite of the desired effect. There should be better examples of this. As of Oct 2009 most examples given still meet ElectricRay's assessment of "simply silly". Naaman Brown (talk) 13:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

An article about "Unintended consequence"??

I think this article must be titled "Law of Unintended Consequences" and by no means "Unintended consequence". --euyyn 23:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Support. I tend to think so as well. --Childhood's End 13:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. It's somewhat popular to call it a law, but it is by no means either a scientific law nor civil legislation. I think the better title is the current "Unintended Consequence" with an explanation of why it's sometimes called a law. Bob Stein - VisiBone 12:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Support.' What encyclopedia has an article on 'unintended consequences'? I had to do a double take when I saw "unintended consequences" linked from another article. J Lorraine (talk) 01:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Support. I would agree that it should be "Law" in the same way that "Murphy's Law" is stated as such, based merely on the results of a google search on the two phrases. That said, I don't see why the article couldn't be written in such a way to reference both phrases as well as defining each in a concise way.Dogpa14 (talk) 19:06, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Does this deserve an article?

I think the said ' law of unintended consequences ' could deserve an article (an economic article), but by no means the subject "unintended consequence" does. It doesn't even deserve, in my opinion, a dictionary entry, as an "unintended consequence" isn't but a "consequence which is not intended". I dislike this article. We need to reengineer it. --euyyn 00:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes it does deserve an article. See my comments below. If you've ever managed something then you know that unintended consequences are important. Please do not delete it or anything bad like that. As someone with a fair amount of practical experience in managing things and people, I can tell you that a successful manager gives a lot of thought about unintentional consequences and other ways things can go wrong, and trys to think of how they can be prevented from doing so. In real life, things almost always start to go wrong and you have to be there to check and redirect. I suppose this article could be, now I think of it, part of management theory. I was very impressed by the section giving the reasons for unintented consequences taking place - it suggests ways UCs could be prevented in practice.

You seem to be arguing for the fact that unintended consequences actually occur. That's not the issue here. Should we also have an article for "tricky situation", "hard decision", or "abuse of power"? Those exist in real life too. KenFehling (talk) 13:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments on moving

Seeing this talk page is rather dead, I'm going to be bold and move tis article to "Law of Unintended Consequences". I'll add a redirect from this title to there, so nobody will be lost. Any opposition? --euyyn 21:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

A great article - thanks!

I think this article is great! It told me a lot about something I wasnt even concious of before. Hopefully I can use these ideas in the future. Thanks to the people or person who wrote it.

Perhaps this is related to the theory of errors and reliability engineering.

I think this article should stay as a separate article.

Delete first two or three paragraphs?

I think these paragraphs should be deleted:

'"An unintended consequence comes about when a mechanism that has been installed in the world with the intention of producing one result is used to produce a different (and often conflicting) result. The notion of "gaming the system" illustrates the idea of an unintended consequence. One "games a system" (for example, the tax code) when one acts in such a way that one gains tax advantages by exploiting a tax rule that was intended for some other purpose. Similarly, computer viruses, worms, and other such plagues are unintended consequences of the way certain computer systems are designed. Spam is an unintended consequence of the way the email system works.'

'It's important to distinguish between unintended consequences in this sense and simple historical contingencies. It would not be appropriate to characterize—as this page does below—a negative side effect of a drug as an unintended consequence. It certainly is true that negative side effects are consequences that were not intended. But much of what happens in the world is not (directly) intended. The term unintended consequence should be reserved for the exploitation of a deliberately designed and deployed mechanism to produce an effect that the mechanism is capable of producing but which it was not intended to produce. See the Museum of Unintended Consequences for more examples.'

'Much of the rest of this page takes a broader view of unintended consequence and would (inappropriately) apply the term to virtually any (unexpected) historical contingency."'

The paragraphs should be deleted as the assertions within them are not true or are nonsensical, and I've never heard of "gaming a system" before which may be an invention of the writer. Any objections?

Article is in a bad state

This article is in really bad shape. The first three paragraphs are talking about how the rest of the article is wrong. Also, the Examples section seems to be written by people pushing some agendas. --Apoc2400 08:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

You are right, the start is terrible, confusing and rather POV. Maybe something can be saved from those first paragraphs, but just as illustrations to be reworded and placed at the end of the article. --Pgreenfinch 09:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I concur. The first three paragraphs were written by a person with a particular uncommon interpretation of the words unforseen consequences. I'm going to move the first three paragraphs down to the end of the article, and try to make it less POV. --lk 15:30, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I did my best to clean up and summarize the first paragraphs as well as providing more solid citations; I also (per comments in the last section) moved it back to "the Law of" given the comments on this talk page about both the similarity to Murphy's law as well as common usage as shown by any quick google search.Dogpa14 (talk) 00:21, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Topics from 2007-2008

Law or Not Law

I tried to clarify the good and bad reasons for calling this a "law".

I [removed] someone's text that said roughly "well this isn't law as in legislation" saying instead "well this isn't scientific law". Hope that caused no offense but I think I got their intent and made it a little better. Law has two broad meanings anyway: (1) civil legislation, and (2) scientific law. No one ever claimed it was legistated law, that was rather obvious, so I thought it better to merely discuss it's weakness as scientific law.

At the same time it has some of the properties of a law, and I hope I highlighted them well: the consistent expectation of inconsistency, and a principle those with power would do well to heed, almost as if it were a rule imposed on them. Bob Stein - VisiBone 12:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

There are three reasons why associating Sod's/Murphy's Law with the Consequences law is a serious philosophical error. First because the claimed Consequences law is known to be not always true and therefore is not a Law at all, but merely a statement of likelihood. Second because Sod's/Murphy's Law implies the inevitability of adverse results whereas the Consequences law allows the possibility of both good and bad outcomes fromm the same action. Third because it presumes that the outcomes of the Consequences law always arise from human action - whereas Sod's/Murphy's Law outcomes are random and presumed to occur without human involvement. All references to Sod's/Murphy's Law should be removed from the page.

[User Boscon (talk) 13:53, 26 December 2008 (UTC)<Forthcoming publication, 'The Sod Superstition', David Boswell>

I disagree. The association of Murphy's Law with unintended consequences is well known. Also, the inclusion of the link to Murphy's Law in this page is long standing. If, as you claim, the two are unrelated, then someone should have noticed before this. Note that I did not add the link to Murphy's Law, I just think that the link is obvious. Both are talking about unintended things happening because of what you did.LK (talk) 05:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I also disagree. I would like to see any citation for the statement above that this "law" is "known to be not always true". My understanding of the definition in common use in at least five different fields of study defines it as the way that an intervention in a complex system may or may not get the desired result, but will (inevitably) get unanticipated results over time. I have not read / seen cited any example of an intervention in a complex system that did not have unanticipated results or outcomes as the result, mainly because humans have limited capability to understand the variables in a complex system...and that's why we call them complex.

I also would claim that 'law' in this context can be defined as "a principle based on the predictable consequences of an act, condition, etc.: the law of supply and demand"[1].

Finally, I have also not seen any limitation on who/what causes the intervention, although it's certainly true that in common usage it is a warning against hubris.Dogpa14 (talk) 00:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

History

I thought the Scottish Enlightenment mention deserved some slight elaboration, and anyway belonged closer to Merton's mention. Together they cohesively introduce the history. The original paragraph where Scottish Enlightenment appeared (at least before I edited it) seemed to deal with the law/not law question.

Removing memetics category

I am removing the memetics category from this article since you learn no more about the article's contents from the category and v.v. Since so many things may be memes we should try to keep the category closely defined in order to remain useful. Hope you're okay with that. The link to meme would be enough I suggest. Facius 10:42, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Prune down on number of examples

Here are the examples as the exist now. Can we discuss about what should stay and what should go? --lk (talk) 06:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Examples of Unexpected Benefits:

• The medieval policy of setting up large hunting reserves for the nobility has preserved green space, often as parks, throughout England and other places in Europe.

• The wartime practice of sinking ships in shallow waters has created artificial coral reefs.

• Controversial research carried out by John J. Donohue and Steven Levitt and published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics suggests that legalized abortion in the United States has accounted for as much as 50% of the drop in national crime rates. As evidence, Donohue and Levitt cite the fact that states that legalized abortion before Roe v. Wade saw correspondingly earlier drops in crime, and that states where abortion is common saw greater drops in crime than states where abortion is rare. Most convincingly, they found that "in high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states."

• In medicine, most drugs have unintended consequences associated with their use, which are known as 'side effects'. Many are harmful and are more precisely called 'adverse effects'. However, some are beneficial—for instance, aspirin, a pain reliever, can also thin the blood and help to prevent heart attacks. The existence of beneficial side effects also leads to off label use—prescription or use of a drug for a non-intended purpose.

Examples of Perverse Results:

• The Streisand Effect occurs when an attempt to censor or remove a certain piece of information (such as photograph, file or website) instead causes the information in question to become widely known and distributed in a very short time. The fact that a piece of information is being restricted assigns to it a previously nonexistent value in the eyes of the public.

• The introduction of rabbits into Australia for sport led to an explosive growth in the rabbit population; rabbits have become a major feral pest in Australia.

• Standard economic theory implies that minimum wage laws increase unemployment among low wage workers (the workers whose wages the minimum wage law will affect). A survey of American Economic Association economists found that 45.6% fully agreed with the statement, "a minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers", 27.9% partially agreed, and 26.5% disagreed.

• The stiffening of penalties for driving while intoxicated in the United States in the 1980s led, at first, to an increase in hit and run accidents, most of which were believed to have been drunken drivers trying to escape the law (Later, legislators stiffened penalties for leaving the scene of an accident when driving while intoxicated as well).

• In 1990, driven by concern for the increasing number of cyclists' head injuries, the State of Victoria (Australia) made safety helmets mandatory for all bicycle riders. The expected significant reduction in the absolute number of head injuries occurred, but there was also a concomitant, entirely unexpected reduction in the number of juvenile cyclists. Research by Vulcan et al., found that the reduction in the number of juvenile cyclists was entirely due to the fact that the youths considered wearing a bicycle helmet unfashionable or not "cool".

• "Prohibition", in the 1920s U.S., originally enacted to suppress the alcohol trade, drove many small-time alcohol suppliers out of business and consolidated the hold of large-scale organized crime over the illegal alcohol industry. By the time the U.S. repealed Prohibition, the brewing industry had concentrated in a few major brewers, which had been able to ride it out. Sixty years later, the "War on Drugs," intended to suppress the illegal drug trade, likewise drove many small-time drug dealers out of business and consolidated the hold of organized drug cartels over the illegal drug industry. Additionally, it has led to the existence of street drugs of unknown strength and contamination; at least some drug-related (and particularly opiate-related) deaths are the result of accidental overdosing on drugs that a dealer neglected to dilute to the usual extent.

• In CIA jargon, "blowback" describes the unintended, even undesirable consequences of covert operations. Examples include:
  • Operation Ajax, which contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution & the Iran hostage crisis
  • Covert funding of the Contras in Nicaragua, which lead to the Iran-Contra Affair
  • Covert funding of the Mujahideen, which led to the rise of the Taliban

• Government rent control has led to the unintended consequence of housing shortages and reduction in housing quality, increased difficulty for less desirable renters to obtain or retain housing and even to the creation of slums—areas where owners permit rental property to run down until it becomes uninhabitable, leading renters to leave.

• The locking of aircraft cockpit doors to prevent terrorists taking control of the aircraft resulted in Helios Airways Flight 522 crashing due to the pilots' loss of oxygen and the stewards' inability to control the craft.

It seems to me that it's the makings of a list of unintended consequences or a Category:Unintended consequences Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 15:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, that sounds interesting. But a Category:Unintended consequences would require that there be many articles documenting cases of unintended consequences. Are there enough? --lk (talk) 19:23, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I think there are many candidates, but it will also be very contentious. Most things that humans do can be criticized by claiming unintended consequences, and much of the discussion revolves around just that. For practically all contemporary issues, and many historical ones, the verdict is still out. — Sebastian 20:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm suspicious of the minimum wage one: It appears to be just a survey of people, not an actual proof. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary has the following to say about example:

1. Something that is representative of all such things in a group.
2. Something that serves to illustrate or explain a rule.
3. [...]

I think the second meaning is the one that makes most sense here. Therefore, we only need to list enough examples to explain the meaning of the topic. For that reason, I just removed the reference to biofuel. It does not help explain the topic, but rather uses this article as a WP:Soapbox. — Sebastian 20:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

My vote is for a short list of clear examples. Streisand Effect is a recent term for an internet phenomenon and sounds like an ephermeral TMZ style catch phrase that may not last long. The first example I recall for "an attempt to censor or ban something resulting in increased notoriety and distribution of the thing censored or banned" was when D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterly's Lover" was "banned in Boston" insuring it was read by more people than ever. Encyclopedic should mean a few widely recognised examples illustrating the general understanding of the meaning of "Unintended Consequences", leaving application to controversial subjects like abortion or gun control to the soapboxes on those subjects. People look to an encyclopedia first to clarify understanding of general principles about a subject. Naaman Brown (talk) 15:25, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Please no minimum wage

Minimum wage was listed as a perverse example, but it's a very bad one. It's very controversial, without a good empirical study showing a strong negative effect. For example most studies listed in Minimum_wage#Empirical_studies show percentage decrease in hours worked lower than percentage increase in hourly wages, what means that people will earn a bit more total money while working slightly less, hardly a major perverse consequence.

Even if the effect was in its totality somewhat negative, it's just too weak and controversial to be worth the mention. There are just so many better examples than that, with strong and clear negative effects, there's no reason to use a weak one like that.

I think it's a very strong example, which basic economic theory proves. It's one of the first things I remember learning in three separate economics classes. It's conclusion is non-obvious, and enlightening. Even if it cannot be "proven" with statistics, statistics are flawed and imperfect. Most of the perverse results of minimum wage cannot be seen by statistics, such as the number of people who don't get jobs because of minimum wage, or the number of small businesses that don't get started because labor costs make the venture unprofitable. Minimum wage is a classic example in the school of economics, and that is undisputable. Mac520 (talk) 16:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

No Bastiat?

WTF wikipedians?

Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas —189.6.28.35 (talk) 18:18, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Topics from 2009-2010

Woulda/coulda/shoulda still needs sources

18-Jan-2009: The article, up into 2009, has used nebulous wording (such as "one might consider" or "students of history often conjecture"), as if writing the article entirely with hypothetical phrases could dodge the need for sources, because none of those phrases actually claims to be true. I re-worded the top intro section with more direct phrasing, but beware other phrases suggesting that if something is the case, or if one could group the data, or using a particular perspective...then voila, the conclusion. The article has seemed to be a likely candidate as the wannabe "poster child" for policy WP:WEASEL. It really tries to dodge any concrete facts, while just speculating about everything. Perhaps back in 2004, articles could avoid citing sources, as a cop-out, when the wording was all hypothetical phrases, but too many people have complained. I suggest tying all wording & examples to cited sources, rather than claim that if a particular something were assumed, then the article could state a calculated conclusion. Unsourced writing here is too easily slanted as "POV pushing" for how something has failed compared to the hypothetical intentions, none of the comparisons tied to actual sources. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Too many examples, many controversial; cite from reliable source required for inclusion

It's been long noted on this talk page that the article has too many examples, and many are controversial too boot. We can't seem to get consensus on what to trim down. Therefore, unless there is some good reason otherwise, examples should henceforth be cited to a reliable source to show that it is a) notable, and b) widely accepted as an example of an unintended consequence. From now on, do not add (or add back) any examples that are not cited to a reliable source. LK (talk) 02:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the example list is too long, I think it's just right. More examples help the reader understand the application of the concept, which is the most important part of the article. Furthermore, the examples currently listed are not controversial. They are all well-known, backed by a multitude of statistical studies, and can be easily derived using common sense and logic. Clicking on the links to the individual articles (e.g. Streissand effect) leads to further explanation and citation of why those examples involve unintended consequences, and so therefore further citation is not necessary on this page. If you want to copy and paste references from those articles, go ahead. Mac520 (talk) 03:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. How's this?

• Controversial independent research by Gary Kleck, John Lott and others suggests that legal ownership of firearms is a significant deterrant to crime and that gun control intended to prevent crime by reducing legal gun ownership may have the consequence of not disarming criminals.

Why is the controversial abortion effect kept and the controversial gun control effect dropt?Naaman Brown (talk) 22:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Yet Another Example

It would be a witty addition to include Kennesaw County's Gun Law under 'Uninteded Consequence'. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_Georgia#Gun_law —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.157.64.8 (talk) 11:55, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Gun control citations

Checking out the gun control paragraph, it seems that both of the references are just links to the Gun politics article. Moreover, the references in that article re: use of knives and other alternate weapons in response to gun control directly contradict the paragraph.

Controversy aside, the paragraph seems topical enough, but I don't think it belongs on Wikipedia without references to a reliable primary source, so I've gone ahead and removed it for now. 85.64.3.6 (talk) 01:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you mean reliable secondary source, per WP:PSTS. LK (talk) 13:16, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Is this article an original synthesis of sources of various quality, per WP:SYN? Xme (talk) 15:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Rabbit citation

An anonymous user tried to add the following citation for the rabbit example:

• Dunning, Alfred . "Article: Australia’S Rabbit Problem", www.shvoong.com, January 11, 2009

Unfortunately, the URL leads not to an article by Alfred Dunning, but to someone's summary of it. In addition, the summary article does not contain statements that back up the statements in the wikipedia text. I have deleted it, as irrelevant.--Toddy1 (talk) 15:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The rabbit example is good and is notable, as it's been frequently commented on as an example of unintended consequences. Someone should just do a google on it. LK (talk) 04:33, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

"blowback"

The covert ops term "blowback" is related to "hoist by one's own petard" or "victim of one's own device (infernal device or mal engine)"; the medieval petardier would nail a petard (gunpowder bomb) to a castle gate, light the match (fuse), then run like heck; they were often killed by the explosion intended to breech the gate. Reference to this unintended consequence dates back to the days of Shakespeare. Research for citable sources needed. But the Shakespearean "hoist by one's own petard" is the earliest recoginition of unintended consequences that I can recall. Naaman Brown (talk) 14:41, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Second thoughts. Covert Ops "blowback" may be an undesirable outcome, but like the medieval petard hoisting the petardier it is a reasonably predictable possible outcome that could be considered aforehand; such an outcome is often the result of looking only at possible benefits ignoring or downplaying possible costs, or vice versa, weighing costs ignoring benefits. An unintended consequence is a consequence not the same as the one intended, and usually one that is forseeable only with the proverbial 20-20 hindsight. The introduction of rabbits to Australia and kudzu to the American South fit this model. Naaman Brown (talk) 02:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

If negative consequences were foreseen and generally accepted, an action with mainly negative consequences would not be taken. In the case of the CIA actions, the people taking them believed that they were making things better for America, or at least claim to have believed so. That the negative consequences were foreseen by other people, does not make it an unforeseen consequence for the group that took the action. eg. The tragic consequences of the Treaty of Versailles was foreseen by John Maynard Keynes, but not by the people in power at that time. LK (talk) 03:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Law of Unintended Consequences

I've read this talk discussion, but I don't see how Murphy's Law is any different from this one. Neither are legislative or scientific laws, they are merely observations of human behavior. Furthermore, the second reference of this article states, "The law of unintended consequences, often cited but rarely defined, is that actions of people—and especially of government—always have effects that are unanticipated or unintended." If the sources call it a law, Wikipedia should call it a law too. To deviate would be original research. Mac520 (talk) 19:53, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

If you are suggesting that we move the article from 'Unintended Consequence' to 'Law of Unintended Consequences', I would agree. Anyone object? LK (talk) 01:20, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I should have been more precise. I propose we move the article. Mac520 (talk) 06:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

As I see it, there are two problems: a) the lead would have to rewritten in a way that includes both 'Unintended Consequence' and 'Law of Unintended Consequences'; b) There is an academic literature on Unforseen Consequences (Robert Merton and others), do we want to split that off, or keep it in page? If keep it in page, how would we do this? LK (talk) 09:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

This is true. I didn't read the Merton bit. I found this article from Parable of the Broken Window which calls it a law. I was unaware it's been called different things by different sources. Is it considered synthesis by merging these two topics together, or can it be assumed they are the same thing? Mac520 (talk) 16:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the move. It seems to me that the many loud voices regarding the examples, as well as the results of any google search on this "law" illustrates the need for inclusion of this article under the 'law' title rather than the shorter phrase. I would also like to see a major edit / simplification of the first paragraphs that leverages the Murphy's Law article should coincide with the move. Dogpa14 (talk) 18:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Since there have been no objections to the idea of a move for several months, I will perform the move; feel free to undo it, but please state your reasoning, since there has been no discussion here since November 1.Dogpa14 (talk) 00:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Move reverted against consensus

I also agree with the consensus above to change the article title. Google scholar shows that the "Law of unintended consequences" is certainly no stranger to the academic literature, so I don't see real problems with introducing the Law and then detailing what is meant by "unintended consequences", including Merton's take. Dogpa14, who seems to have stopped editing, made the move as he stated above. However, he did not restructure the article, which, at that point, needed restructuring.

Then another user, Lowellian, reverted the change, without discussing the matter here. I have asked Lowellian to undo his revert or discuss the matter here. --Epipelagic (talk) 00:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I frankly don't even remember making that move, as it was so many months ago. However, checking this talk page now, I see that at the time, two people wanted it at "law of...". Two people is not a "consensus". Just now, I quickly skimmed the article again. The article reads like it is about "unintended consequences" in general, not specifically about the "law of unintended consequences", so I am opposed to such a move for that reason. I don't object per se to an article about the law, but most of this article's text is not about such a law, but about unintended consequences in general. The article's title should reflect the subject of its text. —Lowellian (reply) 00:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

If you read the above thread, you will see it has three participants, and all three agree with the rename. Then I am also supporting the move. That's four people. You are the only dissenter. The article reads like it is about "unintended consequences" because that is what it is currently called. The editor who made the original move was a novice editor who didn't make the necessary rewrite for the article. I intend to restructure and expand the article after the rename. The article cannot be properly structured the way it is named now. If after the rewrite, you still have issues, you could raise the matter again. In the meantime, please respect the consensus on this page. --Epipelagic (talk) 01:47, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Read my comment more carefully: Yes, now, months later, there are others. I said two people at the time I made that move (and by the time I made that move, those two posts were already months old and, I probably thought, a dead topic -- that is, if I even saw the discussion on the talk page at all, as I might well have made the move without checking that talk page at all, since I probably thought it to be an uncontroversial case; I don't remember exactly). My point is that the accusation that I ignored consensus is false. Simply stating that more editors had later expressed an opinion contrary to my move and thus the page should now be moved would have been sufficient without that unnecessary, unproductive, and untrue accusation against me.

In any case, I am not now going to personally make a move that I disagree with. Please file a request at WP:RM.

—Lowellian (reply) 11:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

So you are not going to restore the title you "disagree with", even though you offer no real reason why the title shouldn't be used, and you choose to ride roughshod over the views of four other editors. Is your approach collegial and aimed at the best interests of Wikipedia, or are you doing something here that administrators should simply not be doing? --Epipelagic (talk) 21:23, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

As I already explained, my reasoning regarding the title is that the article's text discusses unintended consequences in general, not specifically the law of unintended consequences. And as I already suggested, file a request at WP:RM instead of continuing your personal attacks against me. —Lowellian (reply) 02:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore, I will add that the article was originally at "unintended consequences", not "law of...", so rather than changing the name of the article, I actually restored the original name. —Lowellian (reply) 10:42, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that the the two concepts are sufficiently different to warrant each having their own page. Hpvpp (talk) 00:21, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Well yes, in the face of such arbitrary obstruction and exercise of power, that may be a compromise; though not, IMO, an optimal outcome. --Epipelagic (talk) 01:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Epipelagic - if you think the page should be moved, the procedure is that you should file a request at WP:RM if the move is controversial. Lowellian has made it clear that it is controversial. As for the discussion that took place last year, I thought that it was a dead discussion. If it had been a decision to move the page it would have been an archived discussion like Talk:Kiev#Requested move to Kyiv (September 2008).

Creating a new POV fork page is not the answer.--Toddy1 (talk) 07:20, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Toddy. Lowellian's refusal to restore the title of the article has not "made it clear that it is controversial." He is the only editor to disagree in a group of five editors. And remember Lowellian reverted a move already agreed upon, reverting out of process, against the earlier consensus and without explaining at the time why he had done that on the talk page.

Nor would having a separate article on the law of unintended consequences be a POV fork. As Hpvpp points out above, "the two concepts are sufficiently different to warrant each having their own page." Lowellian himself points out (though it is not the valid reason he claims for refusing to revert the title) that the current article's text "discusses unintended consequences in general, not specifically the law of unintended consequences". A POV fork occurs when a second article masquerades as a separate article, when in fact it is is just covering the same material from a different POV. Separate articles here would each cover conceptually separate material, and has additional merit because it eliminates the naming conflict. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm kinda on the fence about the move, but I'm leaning more towards the present name because of Merton's work and the sociology literature about unforeseen consequences. If we change the article title to "Law of Unintended Consequences" that would exclude much of the academic literature on this issue. For example, note that Google scholar returns 83,00 papers for "Unintended Consequences"[2] vs 4,100 for "Law of Unintended Consequences"[3] I suggest we leave things as is. --LK (talk) 08:18, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Lawrence, do you have a problem with creating a separate article for "Law of unintended consequences"? It might not turn out a useful manoeuvre. I've been looking at available sources, and am in two minds about it myself. But there is incipient promise such as here, and the exercise could be useful. At base it is to do with intrinsic inability to conceptually capture and control complex systems beyond a certain point. It might be handy if there was a "law of unforeseeable consequences". This more passive and merely observational parallel to the more active "unintended consequences" could be applied to issues like climate change (I'm joking of course–these are not real laws). Even we decided later to merge the articles, no harm would have been done, and a useful clarification might emerge. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• It may be your perception that Lowellian reverted a move already agreed upon; but it is not mine.
• The earlier discussion of a name change seemed inconclusive to me. In any case it was not a move request discussion; it seemed more like the kind of discussion you hold before making an uncontroversial move. Since the discussion revealed that at least one user was against the move, I concluded that there should either be an official move request, or the matter should be dropped. Evidently you interpreted it differently.
• Your proposed Law of unintended consequences article sounds sounds a perfect example of a second article covering the same material from a different POV.

--Toddy1 (talk) 11:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'm out of here, gone. No value wasting more time in an environment this negative. Wikipedia in dysfunctional mode. Still, now I'm gone, perhaps you could actually try and do something constructive yourself with the article Toddy, instead of what you are currently doing. --Epipelagic (talk) 11:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The reason it is not POV is because "unintended consequences" looks at results while "law of ~" looks at the action causing such results in the sense of "if you don't know what you are doing you are likely to cause results you don't want". There is a parallel with invisible hand as well as with wu wei. Confusion arises when those unintended consequences are reified as in invisible hand explanation and Popperian cosmology, but I haven't figured out how to do something about that without it being OR. Hpvpp (talk) 22:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Widespread Linking

Just got linked here from "Common Law" with this quote: "For these reasons, legislative changes tend to be large, jarring and disruptive (sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, and sometimes with unintended consequences)."

I've seen similar links to this page a few times now, and from now on I will be removing them when I see them because they are silly. The concept is self-explanatory assuming one knows what the words "unintended" and "consequence" mean. 76.181.65.127 (talk) 20:06, 7 November 2010 (UTC)