Why Things Happen - Karma or Other?

[Aquarius]

Speaking of unintended consequences and it being another cop out, we all make decisions everyday, the problem I see is that they are not well thought out, we kind of live by the seat of our pants, not saying that it is intentional but we all have such busy lives, like Art calls it the "quickening", we are all running so fast we don't know where we are going. Live and let live seems to be our mantra.

The happiness we seek, a genuine lasting peace and happiness, can be attained only through the purification of our minds. This is possible if we cut the root cause of all suffering and misery—our fundamental ignorance.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The World of Tibetan Buddhism

[Aquarius]

This may be an interesting read.

Unintended Consequences

The law of unintended consequences, often cited but rarely defined, is that actions of people—and especially of government—always have effects that are unanticipated or "unintended." Economists and other social scientists have heeded its power for centuries; for just as long, politicians and popular opinion have largely ignored it.

The concept of unintended consequences is one of the building blocks of economics. Adam Smith's "invisible hand," the most famous metaphor in social science, is an example of a positive unintended consequence. Smith maintained that each individual, seeking only his own gain, "is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention," that end being the public interest. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, or the baker, that we expect our dinner," Smith wrote, "but from regard to their own self interest."

Most often, however, the law of unintended consequences illuminates the perverse unanticipated effects of legislation and regulation. In 1692 John Locke, the English philosopher and a forerunner of modern economists, urged the defeat of a parliamentary bill designed to cut the maximum permissible rate of interest from 6 percent to 4 percent. Locke argued that instead of benefiting borrowers, as intended, it would hurt them. People would find ways to circumvent the law, with the costs of circumvention borne by borrowers. To the extent the law was obeyed, Locke concluded, the chief results would be less available credit and a redistribution of income away from "widows, orphans and all those who have their estates in money."

The first and most complete analysis of the concept of unintended consequences was done in 1936 by the American sociologist Robert K. Merton. In an influential article titled "The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action," Merton identified five sources of unanticipated consequences. The first two—and the most pervasive—were ignorance and error.

Merton labeled the third source the "imperious immediacy of interest." By that he was referring to instances in which an individual wants the intended consequence of an action so much that he purposefully chooses to ignore any unintended effects. (That type of willful ignorance is very different from true ignorance.) A nation, for example, might ban abortion on moral grounds even though children born as a result of the policy may be unwanted and likely to be more dependent on the state. The unwanted children are an unintended consequence of banning abortions, but not an unforeseen one.

"Basic values" was Merton's fourth example. The Protestant ethic of hard work and asceticism, he wrote, "paradoxically leads to its own decline through the accumulation of wealth and possessions." His final case was the "self-defeating prediction." Here he was referring to the instances when the public prediction of a social development proves false precisely because the prediction changes the course of history. For example, the warnings earlier in this century that population growth would lead to mass starvation helped spur scientific breakthroughs in agricultural productivity that have since made it unlikely that the gloomy prophecy will come true. Merton later developed the flip side of this idea, coining the phrase "the self-fulfilling prophecy." In a footnote to the 1936 article, he vowed to write a book devoted to the history and analysis of unanticipated consequences. By 1991, Merton, age eighty, had produced six hundred pages of manuscript but still not completed the work.

The law of unintended consequences provides the basis for many criticisms of government programs. As the critics see it, unintended consequences can add so much to the costs of some programs that they make the programs unwise even if they achieve their stated goals. For instance, the United States has imposed quotas on imports of steel in order to protect steel companies and steelworkers from lower-priced competition. The quotas do help steel companies. But they also make less of the cheap steel available to U.S. automakers. As a result the automakers have to pay more for steel than their foreign competitors do. So policy that protects one industry from foreign competition makes it harder for another industry to compete with imports.

Similarly, Social Security has helped alleviate poverty among senior citizens. Many economists argue, however, that it has carried a cost that goes beyond the payroll taxes levied on workers and employers. Martin Feldstein and others maintain that today's workers save less for their old age because they know they will receive Social Security checks when they retire. If Feldstein and the others are correct, it means that less savings are available, less investment takes place, and the economy—and wages—grow more slowly than they would without Social Security.

The law of unintended consequences is at work always and everywhere. In 1968, for instance, Vermont outlawed roadside billboards and large signs in order to protect the state's pastoral vistas. One unintended consequence was the appearance of large, bizarre "sculptures" adjacent to businesses. An auto dealer commissioned a twelve-foot, sixteen-ton gorilla, clutching a real Volkswagen Beetle. A carpet store is marked by a nineteen-foot genie holding aloft a rolled carpet as he emerges from a smoking teapot. Other sculptures include a horse, a rooster, and a squirrel in red suspenders.

In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, many coastal states enacted laws placing unlimited liability on tanker operators. As a result the Royal Dutch/Shell group, one of the world's biggest oil companies, began hiring independent ships to deliver oil to the United States instead of using its own forty-six-tanker fleet. Oil specialists fretted that other reputable shippers would flee as well, rather than face such unquantifiable risk, leaving the field to fly-by-night tanker operators with leaky ships and iffy insurance. Thus, the probability of spills will increase and the likelihood of collecting damages will decrease as a consequence of the new laws.


About the Author
Rob Norton is a columnist for eCompany Now magazine and was previously the economics editor of Fortune magazine.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/U...sequences.html

[Shecoda]

Perhaps if we lived our lives more "on purpose" we would lose the unintended consequences. If we lived our lives in directed manner, that is directed by ourselves, we would get the rewards we are looking to gain with our purposeful actions.

The government is ourselves and we have let it get out of control with our blase attitudes towards running our own lives.

All here can be changed and fixed when we realize that we are in charge of our lives, of our organizations, and ultimately in charge of our pwn governance.

[Sean]

Shecoda its very hard for most people to take control of their own lives. Most people live from paycheck to paycheck, stuggling to make ends meet and hoping that some financial disaster doesn't come along making them worse off than they already are.
I see most people just stumble through life hoping that something bad doesn't happen.
Even the rich haven't got it. They spend their whole lives in the pursut of more and more money never realizing that they have enough.
I only think the ones that "get it" are those who drop out of society and get out of the rat race.

Shirley what you are describing is a basic law of physics. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

[Shecoda]

A life lived 'on purpose' has nothing to do with how much money a person makes, or how poor their circumstances. It has to do with figuring out what each individual's purpose is here on this earth and living it, or living exploring the purpose.

This can manifest itself in many ways. There are reasons that things seem to happen to us, seemingly unexpected circumstances have their gifts and those gifts can be passed on to others.

But those events are not random, unexpected events. Just as there is no such thing as coincidence, there is no such thing as unasked for events. We just don't realize that we have set up the circumstances to allow those events to take place.

While there are larger events, that the whole collective consciousness agrees to allow to have happen, it is how we choose to personally react to those events that allows us to stay on purpose in our own lives.

[Sean]

Many live trying to find their purpose in life and dying never knowing what it was.
If you want to check back in older threads you will come across the story of my brother. Things like that have directed me to believe that there is no purpose. Its all just random happenings.

"Why are we here? Because we're here. Roll The Bones"
"Why does it happen? Because it Happens. Roll The Bones"

I wish i still had your idealism. But i lost it a long time ago.

[Shecoda]

You chose to be here, you chose this life and you will choose your time of dying as well. We can affect what we came here for by our lifestyle choices, but ultimately it is our belief system that will determine how we live, how long we live, and what we achieve here in this life.

We all make these choices for ourselves to give ourselves the gifts of learning, growing, and being. When we feel it is time to move on, we will do so. Sometimes our actions in life determine how long we will live, but underneath it all, death always remains an option.

Many people do not understand how this works, although the knowledge is there for all to find. Flagging spirits because of lack of understanding can cause many of us to let go without finding our purpose in life.

Flag the thread and I will read it again, I know I read it once, but I don't remember the content enough to comment on it.

Sometimes the downtrodden exist solely to remind the rest of us to be kind and compassionate to those seemingly less fortunate than the rest of us. That may be their purpose in this life.

[Sean]

"Sometimes the downtrodden exist solely to remind the rest of us to be kind and compassionate to those seemingly less fortunate than the rest of us. That may be their purpose in this life"

I can't find the post. Maybe it got lost in one of the Hacks. I'll tell you about it another time. I used your quote for a possible reason why my brother existed.
But isn't that a terrible existance? Just to be an example? What about them/him? I prefer not to believe in a God. For if i did i would consider him very evil and cruel.

[Shecoda]

When one of the human entities that inhabit this planet live the life of the downtrodden, understand that was a choice by that entity to live the life they chose, not because God conscripted them to that way of life, but because they, of their own free will chose to live that life, either as a spirit before they came to this earth, or out of their ego fears after they came back to physical reality.

All That Is does not choose for us the lives we live, the illnesses we suffer, the good fortunes we experience. We choose those events in our lives that will teach us whatever we have chosen to come here to learn.

All That Is just allows us to exist. What we do with that existence is up to us. Our belief system determines our life for the most part.

As we become more enlightened and less superstitious and fearful, we as a race and the individuals comprising that race will do much better at creating our own individual and human race realities.

To truly create our own reality we have to be conscious that we have that ability. We are only now, here in the west, coming to this understanding.

Whether we like it or not, as a race we are insisting that we evolve. A lot of what you see around you in world events is that struggle taking place.

I don't see it so much as good verses evil. I see it more as the evolving enlightened against the fearful who want no change.

Evil is one of the tools the fearful use to hold onto a way of life that is fast slipping away. They fear change, and will fight to hold onto the ways of the past.

They won't win unless humanity is destroyed. This seemingly good vs. evil is how the evolution is played out in our society and timeline. There are other ways to achieve that evolution, but, we as the human race don't choose to explore them.

[Alpha]

Thought I'd bump up this thread.

One of our members is working on this topic as research and potential test, so thought we'd continue this discussion.

Why do things happen?

Why do good things .....good fortune seem to find people who perhaps are not good in deed, kindness, thought, action ( yeah I know perhaps these are judgemental terms, however they are not meant that way).

Why does it seem that those folks how go on a more altruistic path, seem to have more hardship, heartache, personal difficulty, finanacial difficulty...where the forces and energy of there goodness seems not to be reciprocated in this dimension?

Who decides this? Why does it happen? Is there some karmic law or some onher energy at play here?....or is it just a crap shoot?

What do you think?

[Alpha]

Interesting 28 minute video on the subject of Buddhist Dharma - Karma by Ven Dr.Punnaji, who describes Karma as an "attitude toward circumstance", happiness based on lack of "self centeredness"

[Mcnowhere]

Thought I'd bump up this thread.

One of our members is working on this topic as research and potential test, so thought we'd continue this discussion.

Why do things happen?

Why do good things .....good fortune seem to find people who perhaps are not good in deed, kindness, thought, action ( yeah I know perhaps these are judgemental terms, however they are not meant that way).

Why does it seem that those folks how go on a more altruistic path, seem to have more hardship, heartache, personal difficulty, finanacial difficulty...where the forces and energy of there goodness seems not to be reciprocated in this dimension?

Who decides this? Why does it happen? Is there some karmic law or some onher energy at play here?....or is it just a crap shoot?

What do you think?

Yesterday I thought it was a crap shoot, today I think it's a spiritual journey, tomorrow I'll think it's a crap shoot...and so it goes.

[Malaria_Kidd]

www.whengodwinks.com

Google SQuire Rushnell the ABC Television children's show producer who was a guest on with George over four years ago. George always says, "There are no coincidences." Since SQuire was a one hour guest I've not heard a "God wink" mentioned since then.

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
John Wooden, coach


SQuire has little 160 page books about what you all are, or were, talking about. "When God winks on Love", is one title.

Good luck getting this thread going again. There are many good posts well read after a good dusting.