Page 38 - Ruminations

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36. Unintended consequences: three observations

1. Pandora’s cornucopia. This is probably a corollary of entropy: as
an inverse relationship, given both Murphy’s Law and the simian drive
to do anything that can be done, the more that can be done, the more
unintended consequences will occur; and the scale of what is done will
result in comparatively large unintended consequences (including
cascading failure from linked systems vulnerable to relatively small
stresses and low tolerances of error). The combination of genetic
engineering and monoculture factory farming may produce some very
unwanted harvests.

2. The hubris of human expectation. The desire to create real-world
structures subject only to outcomes predictable as a result of abstract
calculations constantly strains at the lessons of both cautionary tales
and known empirically-derived limits. This is utopian, to be shelved
with science fiction. The prime example, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation,
presents the end of history as a determined positive outcome after a
millennium of engineered consequences.

3. Overreaction. The physiological equivalent of unintended
consequences is demonstrated by the body’s internal defenses when it
reacts inappropriately to incorrectly identified threats. The result may
be fatal—death by biological misadventure:

a. autoimmune response.
b. allergic response.
c. antigenic response.

Evolution has led to this situation, following the selected strategy of a
good offense being the best defense. Organisms unable to reach
reproductive age without being killed by their own antibodies have
been taken out of the gene pool—until recently. If a case is to be
made for modern medicine unintentionally weakening our species, this
would be part of it; and thus also exhibit characteristics of the first
two observations, above.

* See “Consequences of Negative Dynamics” in “Dissecting Tables” in The
Gluckman Occasional #4 (2016) for a typology of intended and unintended
consequences.