# shooting the messenger (channel-cut)

*Ordinarily means:* blaming or punishing the person who brings bad news instead of dealing with the news

Power used on the one who reports a near wall instead of on the wall, so later reports stop while the drift toward it goes on.

- Computed level: L16 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: published  ·  Domain: agency

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [power](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-power.over), [report](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-report.information), [wall](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wall.range-end), [near](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-near.spatial), [drift](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-drift.aimless), [later](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-later.temporal), [stop](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-stop.action), [feedback](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-feedback.communication), [model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-model.representation), [use](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-use.application), [instead](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-instead.alternative), [time](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-time.dimension), [toward](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-toward.spatial), [go](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-go.movement)

**Through:** The power can reach the reporter but not the wall, so it acts where it can; each reporter struck teaches the others what reports cost. The channel closes, the holder's model stays whole and stops changing, and the parameter it stopped tracking keeps drifting.

**Novel properties:**
- power spent on the instrument instead of the danger
- a model kept intact by cutting its inputs
- the holder blinds itself using others' fear

## Examples
- In Plutarch's Life of Lucullus, Tigranes has the first man to report Lucullus's advance beheaded, after which no one told him anything and he stayed ignorant as the enemy closed in. *(history)*

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-shooting-the-messenger.channel-cut*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-shooting-the-messenger.channel-cut.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*