This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

Unintended Consequences

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Authored by Eric Peters,

Ever wonder why people throw empty beer bottles out the window – rather than just throw them in the trash when they get home? Could any of it have to do with fear of being found in possession of an “open container” – and of the severe penalties that one would face in that event, even if one isn’t close to being legally “drunk” by the state’s own arbitrary standards (i.e., BAC level)?

unintended consequences pic

I think so, yes.

Actions – including the state’s best-intentioned ones (giving them the benefit of the doubt) have consequences, not all of them foreseen and some of them contrary to what was (we assume) intended.

Revenue from motor fuels excise taxes – collected at the pump – are down because the government has been egging on the mass production of hybrid and electric cars, which use less gas. The more such vehicles there are on the road, the less tax revenue will be collected via motor fuels taxes. This, in turn, has led to talk of “drive-by-mile” taxing schemes, as a replacement for the taxes collected as a percentage of each gallon of gas we purchase.

What unintended consequences will “drive by mile” give birth to?

Cars are “safer” today  – in terms of their structural ability to protect occupants in the event of a crash – than they have ever been. But visibility from within is probably the worst it has ever been – due to the physical structure necessary to fortify the car, such as massive roof pillars, raised in the-air rear ends and tall doors –  making it harder to see what’s going on around you, which makes it more likely that a crash will happen.

friedman quote

This was probably not intended – and perhaps could not have been foreseen.

It happened, regardless.

Volkswagen – and Audi and Porsche, which are part of the VW family –  are being crucified over admitted-to “cheating” on government emissions tests. The tests are so strict that complying with them has had the effect – generally, this is not just a VW diesel issue – of making diesel engines less economical to buy and to operate than they probably would otherwise be. This, in turn, has made it harder for a car company like VW – which to a great extent relies on the value of its cars relative to rivals as the primary driver of sales – to sell its diesel-powered cars. So – in order to keep them price (and fuel-efficiency) competitive, VW “cheated.”

The cars involved – by dint of using less fuel overall – probably emit less of the at-issue emissions overall. By “fixing” them, the government may have triggered another unintended consequence: More aggregate emissions – even if the individual cars are “cleaner,” according to the government’s tests.

It’s probably not intentional. But that’s immaterial.

consequences picc

People are – in general – less attentive to their driving (and less skilled behind the wheel) than they were even just ten years ago. Could it possibly be due to the reflexive adoption of technological solutions to the problem of inattentive driving, which tend to absolve the driver of responsibility for driving the car? Is it surprising that people tend to pay less attention to the ebb and flow of traffic when the car automatically brakes and accelerates for them (i.e., adaptive cruise control) and – in a large and growing number of new cars – will alert them to the possibility of an imminent collision and (if they don’t) will take action to avoid it?

“Safer” cars that encourage less-safe driving. Who would have thought?

Cars (on average) last much longer than they used to, in part because of durability considerations imposed (de facto) by the need to meet federal emissions and fuel efficiency requirements. A new car’s emissions controls, for instance, are required by federal to be warranted for 100,000 miles.

As a result, cars now routinely remain everyday reliable for 15-20 years or about twice as long as cars traditionally lasted for most of the past 100 years.

What’s the unintended consequence?

Slow turnover.

The cars in service stay in service. Which slows their replacement by newer (and one presumes, “cleaner” as well as “safer” and more “efficient”) cars. Why buy a new car, after all, when your current car’s still running just fine? In this way, the government actually achieves what was contrary to its original overt purpose –  i.e.,getting the “dirty” (and “less safe”) cars off the road.

blue water splash

 

It might have been better, on balance, to let things progress naturally – rather than impose artificial (and top-down) solutions. Existing cars might not have been quite as crashworthy, or as fuel-efficient, or perhaps emitted more pollution. But they’d get retired sooner by more up-to-date designs, which would probably be more crashworthy, fuel-efficient and less polluting. Which, overall, would be of benefit to everyone, even the government.

Assuming, of course, those are the intended consequences.

 

- advertisements -

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Mon, 12/07/2015 - 15:59 | 6889231 Kirk2NCC1701
Kirk2NCC1701's picture

I've been warning people about the Law of Unintended Consequences for years.

They typically react with the 'Deer in the headlight' or blank stare.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:11 | 6889267 UndergroundPost
UndergroundPost's picture

Manbearpig

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 18:03 | 6889933 Butter_cup
Butter_cup's picture

Check this legitimate ways to mak? money from home, working on your own time and being your own boss... Join the many successful people who have already used the system. Only reliable internet connection needed, no prior experience neccessary, that's why where are here. Start here... www.wallstreet34.com

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:06 | 6889268 Insurrexion
Insurrexion's picture

"As Mandelbrot explains, "100-year floods" actually occur with startling regularity in all markets. Put another way: you simply cannot massage/manage all risk away with fancy statistical models and trillions of dollars in derivatives, just as you cannot eliminate fatal accidents with airbags and collapsing bumpers.

In other words, all you're really doing is masking the risk--you're not eliminating it. And in hiding the real risk, you are lulling the market participants into a pernicious choice architecture in which their willingness to take riskier and riskier actions is rewarded and encouraged, while caution is punished.

This is how you get a total systemic collapse of the entire choice architecture. And by this I mean not just the financial system and Freddie and Fannie, but the "backstop" provided by the taxpayers: I mean the default of the Federal government as risk skyrockets to heights none of the blind practitioners of modern portfolio theory were able to conceptualize, anticipate or stop."

Charles Hugh Smith

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:21 | 6889350 Demdere
Demdere's picture

I read CHSmith's new book "Radically beneficial".  Very excellent, I recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/Radically-Beneficial-World-Automation-Technology-e...

I also just finished Adrian Bejan's :"Design In Nature". It isn't easy to summarize, except to say it is a discussion of deep linkages in nature, and those are another thing I keep pointing out make the future difficult to predict.  I want to review both of those, when I have time, because they are important and I can only understand things when I write about them, explaining them and putting them into context with other stuff I know.

I read CHSmiths blog all the time, and also his weekly newsletter and all the links.  Charles is a serious guy and worth the time, every time.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:08 | 6889285 venturen
venturen's picture

in the future...it will be know as Obama's Law....there will be Murphy's Law and Obama Law

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:12 | 6889305 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

"Ever wonder why people throw empty beer bottles out the window – rather than just throw them in the trash when they get home?Could any of it have to do with fear of being found in possession of an “open container” – and of the severe penalties that one would face in that event, even if one isn’t close to being legally “drunk” by the state’s own arbitrary standards (i.e., BAC level)?"

No, it's the punishment I'll face if the wife finds out I dared to drink something that would allow me a moment's relaxation.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 17:26 | 6889719 optimator
optimator's picture

Also better facing the wife after opening the door versus kicking it in.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:15 | 6889309 Surveyor4Pres
Surveyor4Pres's picture

Here's a good one:

In Wyoming, you pay an exhorbitant amount for license plates for a NEW vehicle.  Upwards of over $1,000 for one year's plates for my 2015 Toyota Sequoia Limited.  As years go by, the cost for the plates, each year, GO DOWN.  So it is much cheaper to own an old car than a new one, license plate wise.  Old vehicles pay maybe $100 bucks a year for plates.

But at least we don't have toll roads, city stickers, and the rest of the Progressive Leftist Communist crap found in other states.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 17:32 | 6889757 Ward cleaver
Ward cleaver's picture

Yeah here in the great shite hole known as NY they have raised toll to go over GW bridge to $13. To drive down to jersey shore cost more than flying to great state of Fla. This city has turned into wussyville

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 18:41 | 6890144 cynicalskeptic
cynicalskeptic's picture

Was one of those screwed when Companies started moving out of Manhattan across the river to Jersey (closer to where many of their execs lived).  What was an easy mass transit comute became a road trip from hell.   Tolls have more than TRIPLED since I did that commute (a truly sucky one with no mass transit alternatives).

And where does all that money go?  NOT to road and bridge maintenance but to ridiculously high salaries for Port Authority 'executives' - political patronage jobs going to incompetent cronies that do their master's bidding (think Christie and 'bridgegate').   Lots of pork going to connected parties instead of building what's needed.   The reason the Tappan Zee bridge was built so far north - at one of the WIDEST parts of the Hudson instead of down south at a narrow stretch - was to get beyond the jurisdiction of Port Authority.  So........ you ended up with 'just' NYS politics instead of the convoluted multistate and city Port Authority mess.

LOTS of phigh paying patronage jobs in places like the 'Canal Authority' and such filled by political types instead of people like engineers.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:14 | 6889317 Batman11
Batman11's picture

How can we reorganise companies so they are not managed top-down from the board of directors?

 

 

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:19 | 6889334 Batman11
Batman11's picture

Unintended consequences  .....

We have designed derivatives to spread risk through the system and make the financial system robust.

At its first test in 2008, the derivatives that were supposed to make the system safer multiplied losses by 20 times.

 

James Rickards in Currency Wars gives some figures for the loss magnification of complex financial instruments/derivatives in 2008.

Losses from sub-prime - less than $300 billion
With derivative amplification - over $6 trillion

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:25 | 6889372 gregga777
gregga777's picture

"The cars involved – by dint of using less fuel overall – probably emit less of the at-issue emissions overall. By “fixing” them, the government may have triggered another unintended consequence: More aggregate emissions – even if the individual cars are “cleaner,” according to the government’s tests."

Not true. By using a little more fuel, and urea additive from a separate tank, AdVlue, BlueDef, etc., nitrous oxide emissions are reduced by orders of magnitude from Volkswagen's cheat levels. The author's error greatly weakened his essay.

Tue, 12/08/2015 - 08:10 | 6892488 Money_for_Nothing
Money_for_Nothing's picture

"...urea additive from a separate tank..."
What is the total cost of urea in this context? (Including manufacturing pollution.) What happens if someone runs the vehicle with the urea tank empty. Why do government experts have less conflict of interest than private experts? Commander Scott cheated on Star Trek.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 16:30 | 6889400 SelfGov
SelfGov's picture

*ahem*

climate change

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 17:04 | 6889577 honestann
honestann's picture

The human predators who call themselves "government" don't care about consequences.  Why?

Because they shift negative consequences onto others, and shift positive consequences onto themselves and their cronies.

The predators-that-be know their actions cause disaster for the vast majority, but they don't care.  In fact, they love it.

The predators-that-be especially love to cause disaster for the honest, ethical, productive, benevolent individuals who are their primary prey.

The notion of "unintended [negative] consequences" almost doesn't apply to the predators-that-be.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 17:07 | 6889606 Vlad the Inhaler
Vlad the Inhaler's picture

The unintented consequences of robotics, tech, and globalization are that pretty soon, the new normal unemployment rate will be more like 10-15-20% or more, which will  mean way less income tax revenues, and that's when you'll really see some wacky tax schemes being put forth.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 17:41 | 6889796 TuPhat
TuPhat's picture

Not happening, it will all collapse before then.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 17:20 | 6889684 trader1
trader1's picture

in some countries you MUST drive around with open beer bottles in order to recycle them.

 

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 17:38 | 6889779 sunkeye
sunkeye's picture

I got one - that hurts.

So disgusted at the Clintons' pathological lies & corruption, I voted for Bush II.  OMFG talk about unintended consequences. And I ain't kidding or bull-shitting either.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 17:42 | 6889804 TuPhat
TuPhat's picture

I voted for Ron Paul and still got Bush.  What a consequence.  Not voting this next election, that should help Trump.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 23:51 | 6890031 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

The most important sentence

was the concluding QUESTION:

Assuming, of course, those are the intended consequences.

In my view, pot prohibition provided the single simplest symbol and most extreme particular example of the general pattern of social facts.

Consider this recent article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/canadas-next-big-move-it-may-be-legalizing-pot/2015/12/05/b6eeb5aa-9604-11e5-befa-99ceebcbb272_story.html

Canada’s next big move? It may be legalizing pot.

By William Marsden, December 6, 2015.

... “Our system is badly, badly flawed,” said Eugene Oscapella, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and a longtime advocate for legalization. “I keep asking myself a question that I have been asking for 30 years: ‘Could we have done a worse job if we tried? Could we have found a way to create more dysfunction than we managed to create?’” ...

Since the international banksters, as the biggest gangsters,
dominated almost all nations, as well as built the U.N. too,
IT WAS NEVER A MISTAKE THAT DELIBERATELY CAUSED:

‘Could we have done a worse job if we tried? Could we have found a way to create more dysfunction than we managed to create?’

Of course, the superficial public health approaches
deliberately ignore the real human ecology contexts

and enables mainstream morons
& reactionary revolutionaries, to
take the biggest bullies' bullshit
at face value regarding things
like a war on marijuana etc.!

Pot prohibition resulted in the single best plant on the planet for people, for food, fiber, fun and medicine, being re-branded as "marijuana, which is almost as bad as murder." Today, we are watching the psychotic breakdown of pot prohibition, which is becoming Pot Prohibition 2.0, backed by Reefer Madness 2.0. The so-called "legalization" is NOT being based on more Hemp Truth, but rather being based upon compromises with the same old Huge Lies.

The general issue of "Unintended Consequences" raises the method of interpretation that relies upon presumptions based upon applying Hanlon's Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

IN THE ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE, then Hanlon's Razor makes good sense, as a particular application of the generally valid use of Occam's Razor. However, more and more, given the abundance of relevant evidence that is now publicly available, people who tend to presume to use Hanlon's Razor are doing so through their own deliberate ignorance and willful blindness.

In the case of both the so-called "War on Drugs," and now the "War on Terror," those were deliberately designed and implemented by the ruling classes, in order for the resulting social situations to become such that they achieved what they ACTUALLY INTENDED, therefore, they succeeded. That is what should be perceived with respect to the answers to the QUESTIONS: "Could we have done a worse job if we tried?  Could we have found a way to create more dysfunction than we managed to create?"

Various mainstream morons and reactionary revolutionaries continue to accept at face value the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories, and therefore, tend to apply Hanlon's Razor to the interpretation of events.  While it may well be correct to regard the political puppets, and the muppets that vote for them, as being incompetent political idiots, and that their actions are due to stupidity, there are actually Deep State Shadow Governments, which have been controlling the public governments.

THEREFORE:

Most of the apparently "unintended consequences" were due to MALICE, rather than stupidity!

There are much deeper reasons for how and why those are the actually operating mechanisms! There do exist, and must necessarily exist, death control systems. The most important thing that those death controls do is back up the debt controls. The long history of successful warfare based upon backing up deceits with destruction morphed to become successful finance based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks. Those social situation did NOT happen due to any accidents, through "unintended consequences," but rather were due to the prolonged and persistent applications of the methods of organized crime.

We are living inside of an oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, where science and technology are primarily employed through social pyramid systems that were built on the basis of being able to back up lies with violence, which became more sophisticated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. We do NOT live in a genuinely scientific society, since, so far, the prodigious progress in physical science has been kept compartmentalized, due to it having to compromise with the biggest bullies' bullshit world views, where the social successfulness of the ruling classes is based upon their having waged war against the consciousness of those they ruled over.

I REPEAT THE ESSENTIAL POINTS:

There are, and must necessarily be, some death control systems, that back up some debt control systems. Those have become most socially successful through being done in the most deceitful and fraudulent ways. At the present time, it is politically impossible to have any better public debates regarding the various issues of apparent "unintended consequences," because the first and foremost of those are causing deaths. Actually causing deaths have developed through artificial selections systems which were most socially successful when done in the most deceitful and treacherous ways possible.

Those problems are way more profound than most people are willing and able to think about! The ultimate manifestations of "unintended consequences" are that the ways that the established systems of debt controls backed by death control work will drive there to be the maximum possible debt insanities, provoking the maximum possible death insanities.

The only genuinely better alternatives would have to become better death control systems, that used more information, that enabled higher consciousness. However, most of the mainstream morons and reactionary revolutionaries, as well as all of the professional hypocrites that are operating the established social pyramid systems tend to continue to rely upon Hanlon's Razor, and so, are able to engage in superficial analysis of apparent "unintended consequences," which then enable them to indulge in proposing similarly superficial, bogus "solutions" to the various political problems.

Actually, the death control systems developed deliberately. Their "unintended consequences" were not unforeseen accidents, due to oversight and stupidity.

Furthermore, the only ways to realistically resolve real political problems any better would necessarily require better death control systems, which in turn would take profound paradigm shifts in the ways that we perceive and think about those death control systems. Moreover, that becomes totally pervasive, since the most important thing that the death control systems do is back up the debt controls systems.

THE BIG PROBLEMS THAT THE HUMAN SPECIES FACES ARE DUE TO THE HISTORY OF SUCCESSFUL WARFARE BASED ON BACKING UP DECEITS WITH DESTRUCTION, MORPHING TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL FINANCE BASED ON ENFORCING FRAUDS.

The vast majority of people want to continue to believe in the biggest bullies' bullshit regarding those problems, including believe in the banksters' bullshit about the political economy, which is based upon integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which ranged all the way through from marijuana laws to the monetary system, and which continues to dominate the military systems, such that the public murder systems are actually directed by HUGE LIES, because that was what used to WORK BEST, for thousand of years. HOWEVER, that kind of social pyramid system has recently become electronic frauds, backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs, and therefore, human civilization has now become trillions of times more criminally insane than it ever was before! Hence, the "unintended consequences" from globalized systems of electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, are practically impossible to fully comprehend or imagine!

THAT is the context in which one should ask the QUESTIONS about whether there were actually "intended consequences," rather than merely "unintended consequences."

REAL human ecologies developed in ways whereby different cultural (& somewhat genetic) groups of human beings filled the niches of predatory/parasites versus productive/prey. By and large, those who are the predatory/parasites have taught the productive/prey the bullshit social stories that they believe in, while the predatory/parasites also publicly pretend to believe in the same bullshit. Generally speaking, there is now nothing significant but the core groups of organized crime (bankster controlled governments), surrounded by various layers of controlled opposition groups, BOTH of which tend to stay within the same fundamentally fraudulent ways of thinking and discussing any political problems. Therefore, that is the overall context in which any apparent "unintended consequences" are manifesting.

Hanlon's Razor is relied upon by those who want to avoid coming to the conclusions regarding how malicious the ruling classes actually are, which then also enables those who engage in that kind of superficial analysis to not have to admit and address the issues regarding how and why there necessarily are some death controls, which back up some debt controls.

Theoretically speaking, it would be possible to develop a more genuinely scientific society, but not unless the social facts regarding the death controls were directly studied and publicly discussed in more genuinely scientific ways. HOWEVER, that runs into a head-on collision with the history of militarism, as the ideology of the murder systems, whose social successfulness was based on being able to be deceitful and treacherous, which then enabled the financial successfulness based upon being able to enforce frauds.

Since it appears to be politically impossible for the established systems to stop being dominated by the best available professional hypocrites, due to the entrenched vicious spirals of POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS, we are rushing faster and faster towards manifesting the supreme "unintended consequences" that will flow from the ruling classes having built globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs, while those they rule over have been conditioned to feel like they do not want to understand that in any deeper ways.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 18:29 | 6890079 Who was that ma...
Who was that masked man's picture

It has been known for years that seat belts cause accidents because securely buckled in drivers tend to feel "safer" and are thus, more willing to take chances.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 18:52 | 6890208 cynicalskeptic
cynicalskeptic's picture

Ever read about the idiot renting an RV that thought the 'cruise control' meant something like 'autopilot' (e.g. automatic driving) and literally got up to go to the bathroom leaving the drivers seat empty?  You can't design away plain old stupid.

Mon, 12/07/2015 - 18:50 | 6890195 cynicalskeptic
cynicalskeptic's picture

'Anti-Lock Brakes' - created for the people that can't drive in rain or ice take control AWAY from the driver and make it HARDER to stop your car.    Never had issues driving in crappy conditions - learn how your car handles and how to deal with it.  When I slam on the brakes I WANT the brakes to stay ON, NOT 'pulse'.   Pulse the brakes and you take LONGER to stop. Plain old physics at work.   They may mimic what you SHOULD do in bad conditions but what if the conditions NEED you to have IMMEDIATE AND CONTINUAL braking?    Slam on the brakes on an old car when you're going 5 mph in clsoe traffic and you STOP.  Anti-lock brakes mean you may end up HITTING the car 5 feet away. Same with gravel or crappy road surfaces.   I've gone through stop signs on wet leaves or on gravel roads in rentals when the anti-lock brakes REFUSED to keep the brakes applied.  Regular brakes would've stopped me fine.

SO often gov regulations try to make up for plain old incompetence or stupidity - driving up costs ywet STILL failing to eliminate the problem.   You can't compensate for 'dumb.'

Tue, 12/08/2015 - 00:03 | 6891883 Rock On Roger
Rock On Roger's picture

Maybe you should slow down if you can't stop in time.

 

I agree with your last sentence.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!