{
  "id": "boiling-frog.drift",
  "term": "boiling frog",
  "sense": "drift",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 14,
  "domain": "collective outcome nobody chose",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A parameter that moves through a window without crossing a wall because the rate of change is too slow to trigger a response, until the thing has already ended.",
  "folk_gloss": "Someone who doesn't react until a bad situation becomes unbearable.",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "drift.aimless",
      "window.range",
      "wall.range-end",
      "parameter.condition"
    ],
    "interaction": "A thing that persists through time in a place can change gradually without being noticed, even when that change carries it to an end.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "A thing can end not by crossing a wall but by failing to notice that the parameter has already moved outside the window."
    ]
  },
  "examples": [],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "boiling frog"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — collective outcome nobody chose"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-boiling-frog.drift"
}