The consequences are coming …
Posted on February 5th, 2010 by MichaelConsequences can be very difficult to forsee because no-one can really see the future. We can only guess or speculate. Sometimes our predictions do happen sometimes they do not. We do the best we can.
Some conseqences are beneficial, some are detrimental. But, they ARE coming! We cannot escape the consequences.
Even experienced executives, scientists and statespeople have difficulty is seeing past the short term consequences of their decisions.
Especially when teaching children to think, who have no long term perspective, it is very difficult to teach them to consider the 5, 10, 15 and 20 year consequences of their thinking, decisions and actions.
Are you aware of the Law of Unintended Consequences?
Wikipedia says, “Unintended consequences are situations where an action results in an outcome that is not (or not only) what is intended. The unintended results may be foreseen or unforeseen, but they should be the logical or likely results of the action. For example, it is often conjectured that if the Treaty of Versailles had not imposed such harsh conditions on Germany, World War II would not have occurred. As such, war was an unintended consequence of the Treaty of Versailles … “
February 5th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Right. The Law of Unintended Consequences (LUC) seems to be one of very few valid laws in the social sphere. It is about consequnces nobody considered, but which happened nevertheless. Its complement is the “law”(?) of consequences that were expressely intended NOT to happen, and which do happen. For instance, antibiotics were developed to kill undesirable microorganisms. The obvious consequence is that the microorganisms SHALL die. The complementary form of the LUC is that the microorganisms develop immunity to antibiotics and not only survive, but even multiply.