The most long term unintended consequence seems to me to be the Great Wall of China. It was built, I suspect, as a result of paranoia and xenophobia. And now it is populated with tourists from all over the globe.
My pics of the Great Wall of China
We met people from Spain, France and Germany passing through in just the short time we were there.
Another long term unintended consequence, IMO, is the accumulation of sects from the outgrowth of Christianity. Whether from Christ’s viewpoint, who IMHO talked about fulfilling the law which seems to me wanted to put behind him a number of those same kind of cliquish ideas and ideologies or from Constantine’s who apparently was looking to garner that power and support for his own political war chest or from the pov of the Catholic Church that maintained an iron grip on the European religious thinking that there would be just the one. Then came the sprouting of everything from Jehovah’s witnesses to Focus on the Family that seems to be a result of the hammer that for so long kept them all back. That hammer being the Catholic Church. And like that ball under water, it has zoomed up and bloomed in a hundred splashes.
In the shorter term, Iran shows us what happens when you decide that lying is easy even though deception is hard! I don’t know how honest they were in previous elections but to not even allow time for counting the ballots strikes me as a trifle cocky. And for the Grand Ayatollah to come out and support this lie without a blush, well, doesn’t it seem a bit non saint like?
Now Obama has promised a transparency to his administration completely unlike the previous administration. And yet he finds that it is harder to do than he thought. Getting congress to act on a stimulus bill apparently was easier than letting the public know how bad we have been in the last 8 years. Or rather, how bad Bushco was in the last 8 years. He is finding that WE NOW EXPECT HIM TO FOLLOW THROUGH! And he is finding that dems or rather the us that call ourselves dems are really a herd of cats making noises, scratching at all his good stuff and fighting with each other (or at least making noises like we are fighting with each other).
But still we are kinder to the repubs in office than they deserve. We only make fun of them. We don’t follow up with picketing or hitting them up with boxes of petitions. Why is that? Is it just that one of the unintended consequences of being so horrible is that nobody expects you to be less than perfectly miserable to deal with? It won’t save them at the polls however. Or at least I devoutly hope not.
From my China visit I can conclude that another unintended consequence from not having air conditioning has forced the population out into the park. And there they enjoy kite flying, dancing, karaoke, badminton, tennis, tai chi, dominoes, singing, meditating and cards. All of that gives them more exercise and less of a waistline. It is true that pollution is bad here. Staying in China can take a year or so off of your life because of the massive pollution. But I have not seen obesity like I have on my body. Most folks are trim and hardy. Now I do not want to do away with air conditioning but I would like us to have that same ability to enjoy our parks. Anybody have any ideas?
China activities
What are YOUR unintended consequences?