Unintended consequences are the outcomes of our decisions that we didn’t predict.
Let’s talk about it!
1.) Talk about an important decision you made.
2.) What are some big life decisions that people have to make?
3.) How often do you feel like you are just going with the flow in contrast to feeling a free person making intentional choices?
4.) What’s important to you to be able to make your own, free choice about?
WARM UP ACTIVITIES
Pick One!
Read the options aloud, then pick one. You have 60 seconds to prepare something to say about it.
1.) “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin
2.) Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. – Murphey’s law (Learn more.)
3.) “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – Napoleon Bonaparte (Learn more.)
What’s Wrong?
Find an error in each sentence:
1.) If you eat before diner, you don’t be hungry at diner time.
2.) Do you wish you could told the future?
3.) He said the truth about the situation.
4.) If you don’t pay attention you are likely to do a mistake.
5.) I don’t remember what is your goal.
6.) The project has been a mess before the new boss took over last month.
7.) I consider that there is too much pollution and environment damage happening in the world.
8.) He said me that he had everything organized.
VOCABULARY
Natural consequences refer to the obvious cause and effect relationship between two actions. If you stand in the rain, you get wet. If you touch a hot stove, you burn yourself.
Undesired consequences are the anticipated harmful, negative effects of something. They may be likely to occur, or they may be unlikely but deemed worth the risk.
Unanticipated consequences are the unexpected effects of something. They may be positive or negative.
Unanticipated negative consequences can be more catastrophic than undesired ones, because they come as a surprise and nothing was done ahead of time to mitigate the risks.
More Useful Words
Two way of expressing that the result was obvious:
1.) No wonder…
Example: No wonder you’re tired today. You stayed up so late night! I told you so!
2.) Go figure.
Example: Of course you’re tired after staying up so late. Go figure.
A Pyrrhic victory
“In 279 B.C. Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, a country in northwest Greece, defeated the Romans at the Battle of Ausculum, but lost all of his best officers and many men. He is said to have exclaimed after the battle, “One more such victory and we are lost”. Pyrrhic victories are more common than we tend to think. Whenever we win an argument but in so doing manage to offend the friend we were arguing with, or whenever a country invades another country but rouses widespread opposition in surrounding countries in the process, it’s probably a Pyrrhic victory that has been achieved.” (From Merriam Webster Dictionary)
GRAMMAR
How to talk about consequences in English
So or because? – Try the quiz!
Elegant options for SO – Learn alternative connectors
Causative verbs – Have, make, get, let as causative verbs
How to make predictions and sequential connections in English – Vocabulary and grammar
Review the Future Simple – Using will, going to, and the Present Continuous
See more grammar: Guinlist
SPEAKING
Conversation Activity One
Can you guess what happened?
1.) Some people have allergic reactions to even trace amounts of sesame seeds, yet the possibility of contamination wasn’t always listed on ingredients in American foods. So a law was passed, requiring food companies to either ensure that there wasn’t any sesame in their food, or to put warnings on their packaging.
2.) Forest fire prevention in North America has gotten better and better over the years. Fire bans for campers in dry weather, strict laws around burning fields, and educational campaigns (with our famous Smokey the Bear) to have all helped to greatly reduce the number of fires.
How could this turn out to be a bad thing?
Conversation Activity Two
Select a quote about bad decisions and talk about it. You can say what you think it means, state your opinion about it, or share an example of it from your own life or any other source.
Debate
Think of a policy change that you’d like to see, or select one from the list. Debate the potential consequences.
1.) Legalize all drugs.
2.) Legalize prostitution.
3.) Make alcohol illegal.
4.) Implement a Universal Basic Income.
5.) Impose a maximum wage.
6.) Eliminate immigration requirements. Let people live in the country of their choice.
Looking for more ideas? Check out Bored Panda’s list.
READING – The Cobra Effect
The story goes that back in the days of the British Raj, there was a terrible venomous snake problem in Delhi. To deal with the problem, British officials started a program where they paid people for every dead cobra they brought in. It seemed like a success at first, as lots of dead snakes piled up.
Over time though, people started breeding the snakes to kill and sell to the program. Once the government caught on to what was happening, they stopped the initiative. But by then the damage was done. There were even more venomous snakes in Delhi than there were before.
This is the story behind what is called ‘the cobra effect’. The officials didn’t anticipate what would happen, and so the unintended consequence was that made the snake problem worse. Their actions backfired on them. The cobra effect refers specifically to ill-conceived policies and decisions related to incentives, but it is offers a classic example of unintended consequences in general.
Reading Comprehension Questions
1.) What was the initial problem that the British officials wanted to solve?
2.) How did they try to solve the problem?
3.) What was the result?
FURTHER READING
The Cobra Effect: How Linear Thinking Leads to Unintended Consequences
Systems Thinking and Cobra Effect – Our World (United Nations University)
MORE READING
Chaos Theory – Encyclopedia Britannica
The Butterfly Effect – Wikipedia
What do you want to practice next?
