{"id":11368,"date":"2023-05-19T14:42:06","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T18:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=11368"},"modified":"2023-05-19T14:42:06","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T18:42:06","slug":"red-meat-friday-the-law-of-unintended-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=11368","title":{"rendered":"Red Meat Friday: The Law of Unintended Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I added this item to my blog queue, I marked it as a Red Meat Friday post but now that I\u2019m actually writing it, I\u2019m having second thoughts. That\u2019s because there\u2019s nothing really controversial here. <i>Everyone<\/i> agrees\u2014or should agree\u2014with the conclusion: Before embarking on an endeavor, you should ask yourself, \u201cWhat could go wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because of the law of unintended consequences. Even though your intentions are pure and good, there\u2019s always the possibility that something could go wrong and it pays to consider what that something might be.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s an amusing example. Amusing at least if you aren\u2019t Australian:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Rabbits in Australia are an invasive species and their current population there is estimated in billions. Everything started in 1859 from 24 bunnies released for hunting purposes<\/p>\n<p>[read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NcMe4VYy1A\">https:\/\/t.co\/NcMe4VYy1A<\/a>] <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vDHjzwNg0g\">pic.twitter.com\/vDHjzwNg0g<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Rainmaker1973\/status\/1656902024359985153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 12, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>What could go wrong? We\u2019ll import a couple dozen rabbits and have a nice hunting excursion. Billions of bunnies later, they\u2019re asking, \u201cWho could have imagined?\u201d Well, anyone who knows anything about rabbits or the <a href=\"https:\/\/plus.maths.org\/content\/fibonacci-sequence-brief-introduction\">Fibonacci Sequence<\/a> could easily have imagined what could go wrong if only they\u2019d stopped to ask the question.<\/p>\n<p>Here in the United States, we have the examples of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kudzu\">Kudzu<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/2010\/09\/in_a_rat-eats-possum_world_eve.html\">opossums as rat control<\/a> among many others. And, of course, the French had their infamous <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bnnbloomberg.ca\/france-tried-soaking-the-rich-it-didn-t-go-well-1.1347875\">wealth tax<\/a>. At no point did anyone stop to ask, \u201cWhat could go wrong?\u201d The answers, in retrospect, are all too obvious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I added this item to my blog queue, I marked it as a Red Meat Friday post but now that I\u2019m actually writing it, I\u2019m having second thoughts. That\u2019s because there\u2019s nothing really controversial here. Everyone agrees\u2014or should agree\u2014with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=11368\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-11368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-rmf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11369,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11368\/revisions\/11369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}