Anyone who has ever worked with complex systems is familiar with the law of unintended consequences. You attempt something beneficial but it leads to something else unforeseen that is terrible.

For example, a couple of decades ago, the fashionable mantra among environmentalists was, “Save the trees! Use plastic instead of paper!”

Today New York City alone goes through more than 5 billion plastic bags each year, which pollute the seas and highways, and endanger fish and wildlife. The law of unintended consequences people start out with an idea that sounds quite sensible save the trees but something unexpected and quite undesirable results.

We’ve seen it happen in the medical field. The advent of antibiotics saved millions of lives, so doctors began freely prescribing antibiotics at the s…