Unintended Consequences

By Patrick

Every weekday, one true story of good intentions gone sideways. From cobra bounties in colonial Delhi to recommendation algorithms, each episode follows a single case through the original idea, how it... more

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FAQs about Unintended Consequences:

How many episodes does Unintended Consequences have?

The podcast currently has 103 episodes available.

Unintended Consequences episodes:

June 18, 2026 Ep 33: Factories added radium to watch dials so soldiers could read time in the dark — then trained the painters to shape brushes between their lips.
Factories added radium to watch dials so soldiers could read time in the dark — then trained the painters to shape brushes between their lips.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
In a small apartment in Orange, New Jersey, in 1922, a 22-year-old dial painter named Grace Fryer noticed her teeth loosening and her jaw aching. She had spent four years at the United States Radium Corporation applying a luminous paint that contained radium so military watches and instruments could be read at night. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
8min
June 17, 2026 Ep 32: António Egas Moniz won the 1949 Nobel Prize for the prefrontal lobotomy, a procedure that soon left tens of thousands with lasting cognitive damage.
António Egas Moniz won the 1949 Nobel Prize for the prefrontal lobotomy, a procedure that soon left tens of thousands with lasting cognitive damage.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
On a November morning in 1935, António Egas Moniz watched as a surgeon drilled two small holes into the skull of a sixty-three-year-old woman at Lisbon’s Santa Marta Hospital and injected alcohol into the white matter of her frontal lobes. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
11min
June 16, 2026 Ep 31: A sedative promoted as safe for pregnant women in the 1950s produced the largest drug-related birth-defect epidemic on record before testing rules changed.
A sedative promoted as safe for pregnant women in the 1950s produced the largest drug-related birth-defect epidemic on record before testing rules changed.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
In October 1957, the German firm Chemie Grünenthal began selling thalidomide across West Germany under the name Contergan, describing it as a non-addictive sedative that could be taken even by pregnant women without risk. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
7min
June 15, 2026 Ep 30: Europe's GDPR required websites to obtain clear consent for tracking cookies — and produced an internet full of banners that almost no one reads.
Europe's GDPR required websites to obtain clear consent for tracking cookies — and produced an internet full of banners that almost no one reads.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
On a Tuesday morning in May 2018, millions of Europeans opened their browsers to find every major site suddenly interrupted by a rectangular box asking them to accept or manage cookies. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
7min
June 12, 2026 Ep 29: Congress set stricter fuel economy rules for cars than light trucks in 1975, and automakers responded by selling millions of SUVs instead.
Congress set stricter fuel economy rules for cars than light trucks in 1975, and automakers responded by selling millions of SUVs instead.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
In the spring of 1983, Chrysler began advertising its new Dodge Caravan as a “garageable” alternative to the station wagon, built on a truck chassis that qualified for the lighter federal fuel standard. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
7min
June 11, 2026 Ep 28: Daylight Saving Time was introduced to conserve coal and oil, yet modern evidence shows it saves almost no energy while raising heart attacks and crashes.
Daylight Saving Time was introduced to conserve coal and oil, yet modern evidence shows it saves almost no energy while raising heart attacks and crashes.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
On the morning of March 13, 2016, emergency rooms in Michigan recorded a 24 percent jump in heart-attack admissions compared with the previous Monday. The only change in the preceding twenty-four hours had been the shift to daylight saving time. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
9min
June 10, 2026 Ep 27: Western aid meant to build self-sufficient African economies instead left many governments dependent on the next foreign transfer to stay afloat.
Western aid meant to build self-sufficient African economies instead left many governments dependent on the next foreign transfer to stay afloat.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
In the mid-1980s a district officer in Zambia’s Copperbelt province waited each quarter for the arrival of a World Bank disbursement that paid civil-service salaries and kept the local clinic stocked. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
8min
June 09, 2026 Ep 26: The No Child Left Behind Act tied federal funding to test scores to help every child succeed and instead narrowed what millions of students were taught.
The No Child Left Behind Act tied federal funding to test scores to help every child succeed and instead narrowed what millions of students were taught.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
In the spring of 2006, a fifth-grade teacher in a suburban Texas district stopped holding weekly science experiments and replaced them with daily drills on released items from the state math and reading tests. The change was not her choice. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
7min
June 08, 2026 Ep 25: Rent control was meant to shield tenants from unaffordable rents, yet it repeatedly reduced the supply of rental housing and raised prices for everyone else.
Rent control was meant to shield tenants from unaffordable rents, yet it repeatedly reduced the supply of rental housing and raised prices for everyone else.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
In 2019, a Stanford study examined what happened after San Francisco expanded rent control in 1994. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
8min
June 05, 2026 Ep 24: China's one-child policy aimed to ease population pressure but instead produced a 30-million-person gender imbalance and a shrinking workforce that will shape the country for decades.
China's one-child policy aimed to ease population pressure but instead produced a 30-million-person gender imbalance and a shrinking workforce that will shape the country for decades.
Segment 1 — The Cold Open
In the spring of 1983, family-planning workers in rural Sichuan moved from village to village with quotas and ultrasound machines, recording births and enforcing the new national limit of one child per couple. ...
AI Disclosure: This podcast is curated by Patrick but uses AI-generated voice synthesis for audio production.
📝 Full show notes, transcript & sources: read the episode page
🌐 Part of the Nerra Network — explore every show at nerranetwork.com.
...more
8min

FAQs about Unintended Consequences:

How many episodes does Unintended Consequences have?

The podcast currently has 103 episodes available.