Consequences
As creators and makers of things, it is our responsibility to clearly understand the consequences of the actions we take
Failures
We view consequences as an abstract and distant term which we only think of when something goes wrong. “I should have planned it better”, “I should have thought it through”, “I did not see that coming!”. These are the things we say when there is a failure. We view consequences as an outcome of our actions. Often, when things go wrong, we point at ourselves, or others, or some external factors that were out of our control as at fault. But really, any failure is truly a consequence of our improper planning and lack of vision to foresee “what could go wrong.” Instead we resort to finding other reasons for failure. That said, it is not humanly possible to foresee the unforeseen. Despite of meticulous planning and vision, failures are bound to happen.
But a failure impacts our lives in several ways. Several failures in history have caused pain and agony to several life forms, including humans. It is human nature to detest failure, we all want to succeed, and we would do anything to achieve success. Failure helps us learn it the hard way. But that doesn’t mean that learning the hard way is the only way to learn.
What are consequences
Consequences are not just mere after effects of our actions. We must rather think of consequences as precursors to our actions. The Consequences you obtain determine the quality of your actions, whether the action was good or bad, right or wrong, safe or unsafe etc. The depth of our knowledge about the potential consequences of our actions really determines the quality of the actions we take. It is very important that we know this distinction. We must pay attention to all possible consequences for the actions we take.
Conjectures
A close friend of mine had gone through a rough breakup which was badly affecting his grades and his quality of life. At that time, he was a college graduate, trying to get into medical school. He had nothing else going on in his life and that void forced him to keep indulging into the breakup affair, causing more pain and misery to him and his partner. This continued for several months and I started to lose hope that he was going to get better any soon. I met him after several months and he seemed to completely taken control over his misery and was working toward getting his old life back. When asked, he told me how a near-death accident incident which happened a few weeks ago woke him up and made him realize that he was wasting his time and peace of mind way too much, and that it was not worth it. “Why did you not try overcoming the problem before?” I asked. “I did not think that the consequences could be so bad, I need to get my **** together”, he said.
With our limited vision into future and the constant drive to succeed, we often take decisions and do actions which satisfy our immediate needs, leaving a behemoth of possible good and bad consequences behind. Improper assessment of consequences, and thinking that there won’t be any undesirable consequences is a major reason when our actions fail. There are always consequences to our actions. Period. On the other hand, paying attention to all possible consequences of our actions and truly validating them will help us take more safe and successful actions.
Awareness of consequences
My Professor, Erik Stolterman once brilliantly talked about how the road transportation system we currently have is a huge design failure. Millions of people die every year around the world in road accidents and we have learned to accept it as the way things work. But, the existing road system was designed by someone at some point in history and we have been following it for several years without much changes to it. The number of vehicles and the speed and strength of the vehicles has seen a rapid growth in 21st century, and the current way of regulating road transport is clearly ill equipped to handle this new kind of vehicles, leading to increased mortality rates.
Had someone in those years foreseen the consequences of their proposed design; that emergence of stronger and faster vehicles and the rapidly increasing population would make their design a huge failure, they would have perhaps designed a more comprehensive, fail safe road transportation system.
Those decisions have been made, we cannot change the past, nor can we truly predict the future. But we live in the present, and the actions we take happen — Right now. What we can do is to think religiously of the consequences of our actions and make more informed choices, hoping that they do more gain and less harm, if not any.
Designer actions and consequences
Designers, engineers and businesses alike share a common responsibility when it comes to taking actions. The actions we take and the decisions we make inherently shape the future of our societies. The technologies and services we bring into the world pretty much determine how people live their lives. And just like with life, we always want to succeed in our profession too. We always want to build something new, cool and “revolutionary”. But it is also our responsibility to ensure that the products and services that we build do not cause undesirable consequences for the societies. As creators and makers of things, it is our responsibility to clearly understand the consequences of the actions we take.
