unintended consequences

In the space of about five minutes this morning, I've come across two references to unintended consequences, so let's go there this morning ...

The first thing I came across was a movie from this year that I hadn't heard about prior to today because I live under a rock, I think. The name of the film is Roman J. Israel, Esq., which stars Denzel Washington. Reading a summary of the film, it sounds as though a "good" man gives up and goes for the money, but then, there are unintended benefits and he may be finding himself again. Or something. I haven't seen the film, but it looks interesting.

The second thing I came across was a tweet thread (a thread is a Twitter thing --you might not understand) by Dr. Andrew Thaler. It spoke about how the porgs in the new Star Wars film The Last Jedi were actually puffins that couldn't be erased from footage shot at Skellig Michael, an island off the coast of western Ireland, and the unintended consequence of including the porg/puffins may actually be good for conservation efforts indirectly. (Unfortunately, another possible unintended consequence I just read about was possible loss of Skellig Michael's UNESCO World Heritage status because it's getting too many visitors following the Star Wars exposure).

Humans cannot see the future. All the tea leaves in all the world cannot tell you what may happen later today, let alone a year from now, five years from now, a decade from now. We can use what we have --past experience, data --but it's all ultimately guessing because we exist in a complex system. There may be unintended benefits, unintended drawbacks, or perverse results (meaning the opposite result of what was intended occurs --think the Western concept of bad karma). The point is, they will happen, regardless of all of our planning and most definitely because of our lack of planning or ignorance.

Do I have any answers? Nope. Not a one. Just thinking about this stuff, and I'm left with more questions than answers. If you have any answers about predicting the future accurately (besides self-fulfilling prophecies --can't stand those things!), please let me know.