# head in the sand (unselective)

*Ordinarily means:* refusing to look at a problem in the hope it goes away

keeping one reading out at the price of all readings, an exclusion that cannot be selective because what is blocked is the whole channel and not the threat.

- Computed level: L21 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: model and reality

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [read](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-read.information), [stop](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-stop.action), [whole](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-whole.complete), [single](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-single.quantity), [protection](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-protection.security), [model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-model.representation), [cost](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-cost.economic)

**Through:** The feared reading and every other reading share one channel; blocking the channel is the only exclusion available, so the model buys blindness to the one threat with blindness to everything else that is approaching.

**Novel properties:**
- unselective exclusion
- whole-channel blackout
- collateral blindness

## Examples
- A company that stops reading vulnerability reports also stops reading the one about the flaw it feared. *(security)*
- Skipping the scan avoids one diagnosis and all of them. *(medicine)*
- Not opening the brokerage statements hides the loss and also the margin call. *(finance)*

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-head-in-the-sand.unselective*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-head-in-the-sand.unselective.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*