This is one of the fundamental principles of systems theory regarding purpose-driven social cultural systems. In socio-cultural systems where most behaviors are intentional and purposive, actors are mostly humans. And, this principle simply states that 'actors produce outcomes that were not intended or desired'.
The best example of this maxim is the current situation of Ethiopia. The ethno-terrorists of OLF and TPLF had well considered intention and desire of regime change by means of maximum terror; and they had indeed created maximum destruction. But the regime change did not occur.
Instead, the law of counter-intuition operated on their behavior; that is, they achieved certain unintended and undesired consequences. As we speak 7, 126 actual and suspected terrorists are in jail grouped into 500 court cases. This is the mother of all court cases - 500 files on a single and truly massive genocidal social and economic terrorist act.
My prediction is that when all is said and done about 10, 000 will face the law and eventually will end in the demise of OLFite and TPLFite terrorism as we know it. ACTORS PRODUCE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES ! Remember that.