History's Biggest Unintended Consequences

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, we can't say for sure if that's true or not, but the roads to the environmental devastation of World War and a drunken population certainly are, while no one can accurately predict the future and all the possible ramifications of a decision much of

history

has been shaped by the

unintended

consequences

of these decisions rather than the desired outcome today we will see four times the best laid plans had disastrous

consequences

back in 1917 things were going pretty Well for Germany they had made the bold move of declaring war against the entire world and were in fact winning by the end of 1917, morale in Germany was at an all time high, although this would not last as the Allied forces on the Western Front they would eventually overwhelm the German forces and push them back. to surrender, but the Eastern Front had already been dealt with, although Russia did not officially withdraw from the war until the signing of the Treaty of Breast Lovk in early 1918, internal conflicts within the Russian Empire left them unable to maintain an effective army in February 1918.

In 1917, the February Revolution in Russia caused Nicholas II to abdicate the throne and a new government was established for the short-lived Russian Republic, but this revolution brought with it an opportunity: the Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin had been exiled to Siberia in 1897 and after his 3 BL exile and moved to Western Europe when the Revolution broke out in Russia he saw the opportunity to return to his home country, but there was a problem: almost all transportation to Russia was blocked due to the war , so his only help was to try to negotiate. Passing through the German governments, the Germans were very receptive to Lenin's request because they too saw an opportunity: the revolution had thrown Russia into disarray, but they were still involved in the war.

Allowing the Bolshevik leader to travel east could create enough chaos to strain the Russian Empire. withdrawing completely from the war, allowing Germany to act on a single front, this opportunity seemed too good to ignore, so 32 Russian citizens, including Lenin and his wife, were allowed to travel by train through Germany to Russia, At first it seemed like a great idea. the Germans, within a few months of arriving, Lenin, acting as leader of the Bolik party, led the October Revolution. Germany hoped this would further destabilize Russia, but the Revolution was far more successful than the Bolsheviks could have imagined.

Lenin was the head of the nation's new socialist government before. The year had even ended a few months after taking power. Lenin accepted the aforementioned treaty because he believed that the Russians were tired of fighting and that the war would damage the cause of international socialism, but the result was nothing like what the Germans had intended. Germany had wanted. to destabilize Russia, leaving them with a weak and ineffective government so that they would no longer be able to wage war, instead they escorted Lenin directly to power as head of Soviet Russia, in just 5 years he would form the Soviet Union, which It became one of the most powerful nations in the world and one of Germany's greatest rivals during the following war.

The Germans were not the only ones who made a big mistake in the 1910s. The Central Powers were defeated in 1918, and in 1919 the official terms of surrender were ratified. In the Treaty of Asai, the Central Powers had been completely defeated and had no choice but to accept everything asked of them, including Article 231 of the treaty, also known as the war guilt clause. This clause specified that Germany and its allies had to accept full responsibility for causing the war itself, pay reparations to the allies, and essentially foot the bill for the entire war on both sides. In addition to financial obligations, the treaty also required that Germany gave up territory and limited its army, they were allowed to have a standing army of no more than 100,000 soldiers and their warships were to be scrapped by the Allies.

The German naval fleet was interned at Scapa Flow in Switzerland during the negotiations and when it became clear that the treaty would be signed, the German admiral ordered his officers to sink their ships rather than let them fall into Allied hands, that was Germany's first act. in defiance of the treaty that was technically not signed when the ships were sunk, but would be far from the last as the Allied nations sought to weaken Germany. so that they could never be a repeat of World War I, they pushed too hard financial reparations were calculated based on what the Allies reasonably believed Germany could pay, which was 33 billion US dollars or almost 600 billion today's dollars.

They were even given the option to pay. in kind, meaning that Germany could pay their bill with coal, wood or by repairing the buildings they destroyed, the initial number was even reduced due to Germany's economic difficulties, despite these considerations made by the allies, the sum was simply too high, only the first cash payment was made. The Allied forces continued to insist that the Germans pay their excessive war debts, so French and Belgian forces were sent to Germany to recover coal payments in which German coal workers participated. Passive resistance in which they refused to work or listen to orders, thus preventing coal payments to the allies.

The workers received financial support from the German government, but to do so they had to print currency and plunge Germany into a period of hyperinflation. The treaty was already universally vilified. by the German people and seeing how badly it was affecting their economy only made things worse, from hyperinflation to social unrest and political instability, which was the perfect breeding ground for extremist groups like the Nazi party to recruit new members by trying to prevent Germany from ever becoming a Once again, the Allies created the perfect conditions to allow Hitler's rise to power, marking the beginning of World War II.

The idea of ​​refrigeration dates back to ancient times, although the devices used back then were a far cry from what we have today, the first machines. Refrigerators similar to modern ones were built in 1834, these machines used vapor compression refrigeration systems, a cooling process still commonly used today, but there was one main difference: the gases that were used to provide cooling in the 19th century, there were only three real options. For refrigerants, the first was carbon dioxide, this was by far the safest option, but it was also the least efficient and back then refrigeration was only for industrial or commercial use.

The first domestic refrigerator was not invented until 1913, so carbon dioxide had to be ruled out. In favor of more effective forms of cooling, the next options were methyl ether and methyl chloride, they were much more effective but were also extremely flammable, posing a significant safety risk and finally there were ammonia and dioxide. of sulfur, these gases were also much more efficient. refrigerants than carbon dioxide, but they were also highly toxic to humans as the safe option was not practical, this meant that all refrigeration systems built for almost 100 years were either highly toxic or highly flammable, not an ideal scenario of no way.

While refrigeration leaks weren't exactly common, they weren't particularly rare either, and each leak had the potential to claim numerous lives. Ammonia is still used as a refrigerant in some industrial refrigeration systems today and it is not uncommon for a leak to result in dozens or more deaths in 1928 in the hope of finding a better solution to the problem. American mechanical and chemical engineer Thomas Midgley invented dorof florom methane, also known as fro. This was a much safer alternative which Midgely demonstrated as theoretically as possible at a 1930 American Chemical Society conference, although it appears that like other refrigerants, Freon would be flammable or toxic to allay these fears.

Mgy took the stage with a vile fron which he brought to a boil, then inhaled the fumes of the boiling liquid and blew out a candle, so what could go? The wrong person had invented a non-toxic, non-flammable alternative to refrigeration systems. The compound was a very effective coolant. He made home refrigerators much more affordable. Leaks now carried virtually no risk. There was a small risk that a large league of Freon or other CFCs in a confined space could cause a heart attack or suffocation, but the circumstances under which that could happen were extremely rare. The problem did not arise until the end of World War II, although Midley only intended to use Freon as a refrigerant.

An employee of General Motors and I liked to make money, they looked for other applications of Freon that could increase their income and discovered that it could be used as a propellant in everything from fire extinguishers to spray paint and deodorant, this did not start to happen. Until the 1940s, a few years after M died, if he had been alive, he could have foreseen the dangers of these applications. Freon was invented for use in a closed system. The gas was never supposed to escape from the cooling system or the broken old gas. The machines could even be removed and reused with a high level of effectiveness - if that was all they were used for it is unlikely anything bad would have happened - but with the appearance of CFCs in aerosol cans they were suddenly pushed out into the atmosphere in large quantities, resulting in a complex series of chemical interactions, but the most important step is that the chlorine molecules from the CFCs that had been released would steal the oxygen molecules from the ozone creating chlorine monoxide and oxygen, Although the world was completely unaware of this happening, it was revealed to the public in 198 that the abundance of CFCs released into the atmosphere had created a large hole in the ozone layer when the RMS Titanic sank on April 14, 1912.

Naturally, It was a big deal even though the media portrayed it as an unsinkable ship, it hit an iceberg and sank. to the bottom of the ocean, where it would remain hidden for more than 70 years, there were many questions about how such a disaster could have happened in the first place, but there was another, much more pressing question: why weren't there enough lifeboats now to be fair? The people on board the Titanic were not taking the accident seriously when it first occurred and the first lifeboats left the ship before reaching full capacity, so a full complement of lifeboats was not going to be enough to save the people. all the passengers anyway, but even if the passengers were too late to take the threat to their lives seriously, many more could have survived if there had been an adequate number of lifeboats on board and this error was considered unacceptable in their eventual response. to the Titanic.

The United States Congress passed the ACT to promote the well-being of Americans. Seamen or the Seamen's Law, there were numerous regulations imposed by Law 195, but one of the most important was a strict regulation that ships could not leave port without enough lifeboats for each person on board. Many ship owners considered this expensive and unnecessary, but for the passenger steamboats used on the Great Lakes there was a much more practical concern: these steamboats were already heavy, one could even argue that they were dangerous. These ships already had strict limits on maximum passenger numbers and were now faced with a choice.

Adding more lifeboats or further limiting passengers, the latter was not an option if these gigantic steamers were to remain financially viable, so more weight was piled on the already very heavy ships on July 15, 1915, just 3 months after the Seamen's Law. became law there was a disaster involving the SS Eastland the ship began boarding passengers that morning and at 7:10 a.m. She had reached her full capacity of 2,572 passengers. The Eastland was darker when she began to capsize. The extra weight of the lifeboats was enough to cause the ship to quickly capsize, turning upside down on the floor of the Chicago River.

Eastland was only 20 feet from the dock and in only 20 feet of water not even half the boat was submerged, unfortunately many people. They had already gone below deck to prepare for the start of the voyage, some drowned while others were crushed by heavy furniture in total 844 passengers and crew died that day almost a third of all those who had boarded the ship the new law was had implemented to make traveling by sea safer, butinstead it resulted in one of the most absurd tragedies in American

history

, to be fair, the initial heavy East design was an ill-conceived bus that has been operating for a decade without those extra lifeboats, most likely those 844 people would have survived.

It probably goes without saying that America's so-called noble experiment with prohibition was an unmitigated disaster before it was enshrined in the Constitution. Localized attempts at prohibition had never been successful. People found clever ways to get around the laws and the Portland attempt resulted in a deadly riot until the law was eventually repealed. Despite this, federal lawmakers still thought it was a good idea to try. His idea was that by criminalizing alcohol it would improve public health; it would prevent the moral degradation of society; would protect children and wives from abuse by alcoholics; would reduce crime and corruption and make workers more efficient none of that happens, but the consequences of the ban were very different than what had been planned, perhaps the most

unintended

effect was the damage the ban caused to the economy , it was assumed that since people would no longer be allowed to work they would spend money on alcohol, they would spend a lot more on clothing and hoods, things like theaters and fairs would see massive spikes in business as people looked for a way to entertain themselves without drinking, property values ​​would increase as the death of bars would result in more legal access and thusMore They design desirable neighborhoods and of course they believe that sales of things like gum, soder and grape juice would increase as alcoholics looked for substitute vices to keep their mouths busy and, again, none of that happened: breweries, distilleries and bars all closed as planned, which lawmakers had failed to do.

What he didn't realize was that this would force restaurants to close and that restaurant margins are razor thin and alcohol sales were crucial to their survival. Thousands of other jobs were lost, such as keg makers and truck drivers, sales and other products remained stagnant and the entertainment industry as a whole saw a decline in income, people weren't spending their alcohol budget on other things, they were just They stayed home, possibly to make their own alcohol, but the economic problems didn't end there, lawmakers in Washington were so busy governing from Taxes on alcohol accounted for a large portion of the federal budget, accounting for 30 to 40% of revenues. totals of the federal government at the time when the state level no longer existed.

Better, since states like New York get almost 75% of their tax revenue from the sale of alcohol, this money had to be replaced with state and federal income taxes and the reliance on the income tax to fund the government has been one of the most lasting consequences of Prohibition of Of course, while the economic effects were the most immediate and long-lasting damaging consequences, there was another intended result of the 18th Amendment: more people drank and drank. It is difficult to pin down more exact figures since the speakers did not keep meticulous records. of their illicit alcohol sales, but it is undeniable that prohibition did exactly the opposite of what it was designed to do