Unintended consequence

For the 1996 novel by John Ross, see Unintended Consequences. Unintended consequences can be either positive, in which case we get serendipity or windfalls source of problems, according to the Murphy's law definitively negative: perverse effect, which is the opposite result to the one intended The Law of Unintended Consequences holds that almost all human actions have at least one unintended consequence. In ...

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Possible causes include the world's inherent complexity (parts of a system notice changes to the environment, and change their strategy accordingly), perverse incentives, human stupidity, self-deception or other cognitive or emotional biases. Robert K. Merton listed five causes of unanticipated consequences: Ignorance (It is impossible to anticipate everything.) Error (Incomplete analysis of the problem, or following habits that worked in the past but may not apply to the current situation.) See also:

Unintended consequence, Unintended consequence - Causes, Unintended consequence - Examples

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Collateral damage refers to unintended damage amidst intended damage. It is sometimes considered a euphemism when used to mean death and destruction on a wide scale as in deaths and property destruction during war. Example: "(euphemism) inadvertent casualties and destruction inflicted on civilians in the course of military operations" from the Free Dictionary. Collateral damage - Definition. "Collateral damage is a military euphemism that was made popular during the Vietnam War (Army Technology)". Bu ...

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Emergence is the process of complex pattern formation from simpler rules. This can be a dynamic process (occurring over time), such as the evolution of the human brain over thousands of successive generations; or emergence can happen over disparate size scales, such as the interactions between a great number of neurons producing a human brain capable of thought (even though the constituent neurons are not individually capable of thought). The original term wa ...

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In modern computing terminology, a kludge is a method of solving a problem, doing a task, or fixing a system (whether hardware or software) that is inefficient, inelegant, or even unfathomable, but which nevertheless works. It has been suggested, as a folk etymology, that it means klumsy, lame, ugly, dumb, but good enough; which rather captures the point. To kludge around <something> is to avoid a bug or some difficult condition by building a kludge, perhaps relying on properties of the ...

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Kludge, Kludge - Earliest recorded use, Kludge - Naval use, Kludge - Computer science use, Kludge - Spelling, Kludge - Pronunciation

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"Collateral damage - (euphemism) inadvertent casualties and destruction inflicted on civilians in the course of military operations." (The Free Dictionary) "Collateral damage is a military euphemism that was made popular during the Vietnam War." (Army Technology) But the euphemism has now been in use so long that it is accepted as a correct and proper term within US military forces, meaning "unintentional damage or incidental damage affecting facilities, equipment or personnel, occurring as a result of military actions d ...

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Collateral damage, Collateral damage - Definitions, Collateral damage - Analysis, Collateral damage - Sources

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The usual economic analysis of externalities can be illustrated using a standard supply and demand diagram if the externality can be monetized (valued in terms of money). An extra supply or demand curve is added, as in the diagrams below. One of the curves is the private cost that consumers pay as individuals for additional quantities of the good (in competitive markets, the marginal private cost) and the other curve is the true cost that society as a whole pays for production and consum ...

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Externality, Externality - Implications, Externality - Types of externalities, Externality - Externalities in supply and demand, Externality - Negative externalities, Externality - Beneficial externalities, Externality - Externalities and the Coase theorem

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An emergent behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviours as a collective. If emergence happens over disparate size scales, then the reason is usually a causal relation across different scales. In other words there is often a form of top-down feedback in systems with emergent properties. These are two of the major reasons why emergent behaviour occurs: intricated causal relations across different scales and feedback. The property it ...

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Emergence, Emergence - Emergent properties, Emergence - Emergence in games, Emergence - Emergent structures in nature, Emergence - Emergence in culture and engineering, Emergence - Emergence in physics, Emergence - Bibliography

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Emergent processes or behaviours can be seen in many places, from any multicellular biological organism to traffic patterns, cities or organizational phenomena in computer simulations and cellular automata. The stock market is an example of emergence on a grand scale. As a whole it precisely regulates the relative prices of companies across the world, yet it has no leader; there is no one entity which controls the workings of the entire market. Agents, or investors, have knowledge of only a limited number of companies within their portfolio, ...

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Emergent structures are patterns not created by a single event or rule. There is nothing that commands the system to form a pattern, but instead the interactions of each part to its immediate surroundings causes a complex process which leads to order. One might conclude that emergent structures are more than the sum of their parts because the emergent order will not arise if the various parts are si ...

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Emergent behavior is also important in games and game design. For example, the game of poker, especially in no limit forms without a rigid betting structure, is largely driven by emergent behavior. For example, no rule requires that any player should fold, but usually many players do. Because the game is driven by emergent behavior, play at one poker table might be radically different from that at another, while the rules of the game are exactly the same. Variations of games that develop are examples of emergent metaplay, the pre ...

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In the U.S., kludge traditionally rhymes with huge, but the pronunciation rhyming with fudge is also encountered. Most dictionaries list only the former pronunciation, but Merriam-Webster lists both. Neither bears much resemblance to the pronunciation of the German word klug, which is something like clook (rhymes with spook). Given the usual spelling, the traditional pronunciation is itself something of a kludge, thus reflexively self-illustrating the meaning. In the UK, the pronunciation of kludge is as rhyming with fudge, since the d before the g would prevent ...

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Kludge, Kludge - Earliest recorded use, Kludge - Naval use, Kludge - Computer science use, Kludge - Spelling, Kludge - Pronunciation

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In physics, emergence is used to describe a property, law, or phenomenon which occurs at macroscopic scales (in space or time) but not at microscopic scales, despite the fact that a macroscopic system can be viewed as a very large ensemble of microscopic systems. Some examples include: Color. Elementary particles such as protons or electrons have no color; it is only when they are arranged in atoms that they absorb or emit specific wavelengths of light and thus be said to have a color. (Note that while quarks have a characterist ...

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To most economists, the problem of an externality usually concerns the results of market activity. Economists see voluntary exchange as mutually beneficial to both parties in an exchange. On the other hand, either the consumption of a product (perfume, nice clothes) or its production may have external effects — as in the diagram. Those who suffer from external costs do so involuntarily, while those who enjoy external benefits do so free. The left-hand-side of the diagram shows consumption externalities (such as those of perfume), while the right-hand-side shows production externalities (s ...

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Ronald Coase argued that individuals could organise bargains so as to bring about an efficient outcome and eliminate externalities without government intervention. The government should restrict its role to facilitating bargaining among the affected groups or individuals and to enforcing any contracts that result. This result, often known as the "Coase Theorem," requires that Property rights are well defined; People act rationally Transaction costs are minimal Only if all three of these a ...

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There are reports that the term was in use as early as the 1940s in the United Kingdom, although the first usage listed by the Oxford English Dictionary is by J. W. Granholm in the American Datamation magazine in 1962: Feb. 30/1 The word ‘kludge’ is...derived from the same root as the German Klug..., originally meaning ‘smart’ or ‘witty’... ‘Kludge’ eventually came to mean ‘not so smart’ or ‘pretty ridiculous’. Ibid. 30/2 The building of a Kludge..is not work for amateurs. There is a certain, indefinable, masochistic finesse th ...

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Examples of these kinds of externalities include: Pollution by a firm in the course of its production which causes nuisance or harm to others. This is an example of a negative externality, external cost, or external diseconomy. In a business trying to cut costs, the mail department asks each employee to pick up their own mail from the mailroom. The mail department decreases its costs, but the company suffers inefficiency. The employees' extra time is the mailroom's external cost. Th ...

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