Nice post, Dan. The philosophy you describe – not only that we don’t know the consequences of our actions, but that we can’t know them – reminds me of what Thomas Sowell described as the "constrained vision." I happen to share it, but surprisingly (to me) not everyone does, particularly up here in SF.

More on topic, Boing Boing has been following the Sony thing very closely (one of their focuses is DRM/IP), and posted a roundup of the various unintended consequences: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/17/sony_rootkit_roundup.html