[FRIAM] "chilling effect"

[uǝlƃ ☤>$]

I agree it's a useful distinction. Neither are epiphenomena in the "unintentional" sense. In the Snowden case, it's difficult for me to imagine Snowden, as a whistleblower who felt he had to escape from one "oppressive" regime to take harbor in another oppressive regime, *not* having thought explicitly about any chilling effect such a blown whistle would have. He's too smarmy for me to credit him with naivete. And the NSA may have more stupid members than we think (http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/); but most of us know that measuring a system often modifies the system being measured.

But your use of "investment" helps lay out, perhaps, that there are *categories* of side effect, in the "additional" or "secondary" sense. At least:

  • don't care
  • nice to have
  • collateral damage

I still argue as I did with SteveS, that such a concept, qualified with categories or not, is only relevant in a closed game or axiomatic system. In an open game, those categories explode and cross over too much for any of it to be useful. I.e. epiphenomenon is a useless concept in any real world context.


On 11/12/21 8:15 AM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> I can see that I was being too clumsy. In the SLAPP case and the
> SB8 case chilling is pretty straightforward, but in the case I linked[☃]
> (which jumps to a highlighted section "Chilling effects on Wikipedia
> users" on the Wikipedia page for *chilling effect*) I see an example
> where I don't believe that Wikipedia, Snowden, nor the NSA had any
> investment in chilling out Wikipedia users. Instead, it seems more like
> a novel side effect, a consequence of the subject matter, many citizens
> perceptions of their government, and a revelation of information.
> So I suppose like anything, things may have side effects, and I am not
> sure it contributes anything to mention it.
> 
> Comparing "Wikipedia Foundation versus NSA" with the *Clear Channel
> memorandum*[♪] is interesting to me (a sarcastic thanks again to the
> Telecomm act[⏚]). There, a decision was made to preemptively chill the
> radio of its "affects and percepts"[D]. I'm not entirely sure what the
> concerning response to hearing Lennon's "Imagine" was supposed to be and
> less so for "She's not there" by the Zombies.
> 
> [☃] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect#:~:text=13%5D%5Bfailed%20verification%5D-,Chilling%20effects%20on%20Wikipedia%20users,-%5Bedit%5D <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect#:~:text=13%5D%5Bfailed%20verification%5D-,Chilling%20effects%20on%20Wikipedia%20users,-%5Bedit%5D>
> [♪] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_Channel_memorandum <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_Channel_memorandum>
> [⏚] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996>
> [D] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_(philosophy)#In_Deleuze_and_Guattari <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_(philosophy)#In_Deleuze_and_Guattari>


-- 
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ