Will Wilkinson links to Malcolm Gladwell's The problem with intelligence reform, which cites a researcher who describes the phenomenon of

�creeping determinism��the sense that grows on us, in retrospect, that what has happened was actually inevitable�and the chief effect of creeping determinism, he points out, is that it turns unexpected events into expected events.

Gladwell's got his own site, which posts many earlier writings. He's fascinated by unintended consequences.