“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.” —Herbert Spencer
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Herbert Spencer: Fools and Folly
Tag: unintended consequences
“Who knows how this got out,” one scientist mused, trying to account for how a synthetic marijuana substitute leaked out of his lab and onto … the black market.
I’ll echo that “who knows?” and raise it a “par for the course.”
The War on Drugs backfires all the time.
Take all the lying drug warriors have done (and continue to do) about illegal substances. Their job is to discourage drug use, so they engage in hype. However, once a drug user figures out that the government regularly lies to them about the dangers, they distrust everything the government says.
Our drug use educators also rarely admit that a key factor in all drug use is hormesis, the principle whereby the effectiveness (and lethality) of a drug varies by dosage. No doubt the “zero tolerance”/”just say ‘no’ rap” is easier to communicate, and sports a superficies of sense. But the downside of making drugs illegal (and thereby putting them in the black market) has a consequence: drug purity becomes almost impossible to maintain, rendering drug users unable to manage their doses — and, by long-term adaptation, making them more and more reckless, less and less responsible.
Not a good result.
Also bad is today’s trendy (and reportedly dangerous) marijuana substitute known as “Spice.” And yes, this — along with a cabinet filled with new synthetic substances — was invented by government-funded chemists.
To aid the War on Drugs.
No one knows who leaked the recipe onto the Net, allowing enterprising folks overseas to synthesize it and transport it here. It’s another case of outsourcing caused by an allegedly “well-meaning” government program.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Some “unintended consequences” aren’t.
The order of the market is an unintended consequence of market participation. By buying and selling, we’re just trying to get what we want. But we also send signals that help other folks accommodate our values and plans, which then allows markets to form some semblance of orderliness.
In government, on the other hand, laws get advanced to help this person or that, or whole groups of people. But economists often note that the actual consequences of many policies are at great variance with their advertised benefits. These often negative outcomes we term (following F.A. Hayek) the “unintended consequences.”
It’s worth noting that sometimes politicians do intend those hidden, bad consequences.
Economist David Henderson brings up an instance of this:
One insurance agent I spoke to speculated that politicians and other government officials who support these regulations not only understand these effects, but also like them. Why? Because they cause more people to go without insurance and thus create a demand for government-provided insurance.
Henderson then cites a provision of Obamacare, now kicking in: Regulations mandating medical insurance companies to spend a prescribed percentage of premiums “on actual medical care.” The result will be, almost certainly, the demise of whole hunks of the health insurance industry.
Thereby increasing political demands for government-provided insurance.
Some of the folks who concocted this regulation, and some who voted for it, certainly knew the likely result. And welcomed it.
Politicians are not equally clueless.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
I’m all for alternative sources of energy … providing that they actually produce enough to cover their costs.
Sad to say, it’s beginning to look like wind power is for the birds, if not the bats.
One big fear some people had about wind turbines was that they might kill too many birds. Think giant food processors in the sky.
But it turns out that the bigger danger is to bats. Dead bats are found all around wind turbines. Why?
Wind pressure. The poor little creatures can’t stand the quick change in air pressure around those spinning blades.
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the government agency overseeing the state’s rebate programs for alternative energy, has put a halt to subsidizing small wind turbines. No more bucks for housetop windmills, folks.
The agency sponsored a study that has calculated that the average energy output for the turbines reviewed was no more than 27 percent of what installers had projected. It could be worse, and sometimes is. In Britain, a study found that some poorly placed turbines sucked up more energy converting current from DC to household AC than produced, making them economic and energy sink holes.
We should remember, when activists start talking about revolutionizing things, that subsidies are for the birds, and technology based on hope alone, bats.
It’s from successful business operations that future revolutions come, not from mere wishful thinking. Or any amount of government subsidy.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.