Blog - Page 10 of 13 - Unintended Consequences

2019-04-142021-01-14

Universal Basic Income (Part 1)

I’ve avoided discussing unintended consequences from one of the big policy debates of today — Universal Basic Income. Until now. This is a big topic so I preemptively titled this post as part one.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a general term that describes mostly government programs that distribute a periodic sum of money to citizens without otherwise considering their income. UBI has been proposed as everything from a tool to reduce poverty to a way to guard against the social impact of job loss caused by automation.

Each group outlines ways UBI could work a little differently. But many questions remain, including how will a particular country’s overall social system change? What are the second-order effects? Could UBI work in one place and not another? Could UBI work at one time and not another? Let’s first look at some UBI experiments and their initial pros and cons.

Continue reading “Universal Basic Income (Part 1)”

2019-04-092020-10-06

Who Plays the Stradivarius in Interstellar Space?

This is a piece about the loss of skills — even ones that are marks of great beauty and mastery — due to a change in environment.

It’s an extreme example but a fun one to think through: who would play a Stradivarius violin in interstellar space?

As a way to think through an extreme environmental (not meaning climate here) change, I make the assumption that in coming centuries, whether one, five, or 10, humans will become an interstellar or extrasolar species. That is, some part of humanity will cease living in this solar system, and will instead live on other planets, space ships, or other artificial homes. I count that assumption as the less interesting part of this post and instead focus on the unintended consequences caused by a dramatic change in environment.

Let’s think through what happens to a specific type of human mastery (and by extension, a framework to apply to many others) as humans make extreme choices (like leaving earth).

Q: Who will play the Stradivarius in interstellar space or on extrasolar planets? A: No one. Longer answer below. Continue reading “Who Plays the Stradivarius in Interstellar Space?”

2019-04-022021-07-31

What is Emergence? (Part 1)

Part of my writing is an exploration of themes in unintended consequences and second-order effects. Today’s post is a first introduction to the broad phenomenon of emergence. This topic is something I’ll return to again, so we’re just introducing the term today.

Emergence occurs where the parts of a system interact to form something different from what each part contributes independently. It’s a concept that takes some time to understand at a basic level, though emergence happens all around us. Some common examples include the way hydrogen and oxygen atoms combine to form water (very different in combination from the individual atoms), how water molecules combine to form drops (again different from individual molecules with properties like surface tension), and how drops of water combine to form rivers and oceans (different again with their currents and waves). There are many other examples, from individual birds (or fish) forming flocks (or schools) that move differently than the individuals would by themselves, to consciousness emerging from our physical brains… Continue reading “What is Emergence? (Part 1)”

2019-03-252025-03-22

Against the Natural Order of Things (Tech Change)

When it comes to changes, especially in technology, it’s common for people to have beliefs for what should and should not be. But where do these beliefs come from? How easy are they to change? What makes one person, or generation, or place, have a problem with something new, while another sees nothing wrong?

Where do these differences lead to second-order effects? How can we be aware of these effects and guard against them when we see new tech?

I believe that reflecting on these questions will help us figure out where there are opportunities to benefit. This is the start of exploration of this topic. Continue reading “Against the Natural Order of Things (Tech Change)”

2019-03-192020-10-06

College Admissions Scandal

I tend to stay away from current events in writing about unintended consequences, but I’m weighing in on the recent college admissions scandal. After all, I’m a professor at the school with the most involvement. And the story isn’t really all that new. But it might play out differently than you expect.

tl;dr Is college too expensive? Short answer: yes. Longer answer: it depends. Point of the post: it will get more expensive. Continue reading “College Admissions Scandal”

2019-03-122020-12-17

Autonomous Vehicles and Scaling Risk

I want to see mainstream autonomous vehicles (AVs), but I remain bearish about mainstream high-level autonomy.

My reasons for bearishness are not related to the technology that powers self-driving cars, or demand for AVs. Instead, it’s the systemic risk that wide-scale AV deployments create. What will change when we have numerous fully autonomous cars on the road?

Most of the commentary about AVs doesn’t consider second-order effects in their deployment so I’d like to start a discussion on that. (In this post I take high-level autonomy as a technological eventuality and assume a political climate that supports that.)

Continue reading “Autonomous Vehicles and Scaling Risk”

2019-03-052020-10-06

The Difficulties of Elimitigation

It’s said that to successfully eliminate something you must replace it with something new. We see this in the history of systems where people eliminated and replaced part of it long ago. They survived and so are examples of the cycle being applied well. But why is this method applied poorly? Where does it break down? Since there is uncertain ability and low desire to understand changes that might come after eliminating something, whether there is a replacement or not, how should we mitigate the risks that might emerge?

Between eliminating and replacing something there is another way, which I’ll call “elimitigation,” with “elimitigate” being a portmanteau of “eliminate” and “mitigate.” Continue reading “The Difficulties of Elimitigation”

2019-02-262022-01-21

Uyghurs in Xinjiang

This week’s post is different from the others. It’s me reflecting on my own experience in Xinjiang, a province of China that now has mass internments of the indigenous Uyghur (or Uighur) population. Why did these internments happen and what are the second-order effects? Continue reading “Uyghurs in Xinjiang”

2019-02-192021-07-31

The Long Reach of Short-Term Interests

I write these posts in order to explore how systems work, especially the unintuitive, unseen parts of them. One commonly experienced cause of unintended consequences in systems comes from when actors pursue immediate interests, or short-term thinking.

Short-term interest is one of the causes of unintended consequences listed by Robert Merton in his paper on “Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action” that I’ve referred to in the past (the other causes being error, ignorance, basic values, and the self-defeating prophecy). Merton actually called it the “imperious immediacy of interest,” but I’m sticking with “short-term interest” in this post.

Let’s look at what short-term vs long-term interests are, why we have them, and how they impact us in unexpected ways. Continue reading “The Long Reach of Short-Term Interests”

2019-02-122025-04-15

Systems for Spreading (Diseases and Religions)

How do things spread? How fast can something spread? To how many people can one “infected” person transmit a condition?

Let’s look at some of the unintended consequences of systems for spreading in diseases and religions. And I’m not saying that diseases are religions or religions are diseases, just that they have similarities in the way they spread. Understanding that helps us understand our history. Continue reading “Systems for Spreading (Diseases and Religions)”