09 April, 2009

More unintended consequences

Cracked has an article on 5 laws with unintended consequences - Freakonomics style and worth the read.

Hat tip: Prometheus Titan (his blog here)

2 comments:

Ophis said...

Freakonomics did have a similar post a few days ago.

It's also the reason for my wanting to liberalise the drugs laws as I mentioned before, as those laws provide a good example of unintended consequences, e.g. extra health problems from users having to use entirely unregulated products, and drugs money funding criminal gangs and resulting in more violence and deaths (particularly in Mexico at the moment).

The most annoying thing about this, as with some of the examples that Cracked gives, is the complete lack of rational argument in the responses of most politicians to the problem.

--- said...

Marc, I agree on the drugs front.

The horse riding statistic was quoted quite frequently a couple of months ago.

I think the reason why people often want drugs banned is less through the analysis of their dangers that the gut feeling that happiness should be 'deserved'. Drugs give a short cut to happiness to the 'undeserving' and therefore they are bad.