# too big to fail (margin)

*Ordinarily means:* A thing that is so large that its failure would cause too much damage, so it must be protected.

A thing has grown so large that the work to hold it inside its window would break the system that holds it, and the model of what can persist has already shifted to assume its continued existence.

- Computed level: L15 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: economics

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [window](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-window.range), [maintenance](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-maintenance.upkeep), [model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-model.representation), [boundary](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-boundary.limit), [scale](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-scale.parameter)

**Through:** interaction.process

**Novel properties:**
- margin.spatial
- robustness.resilient

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-too-big-to-fail.margin*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-too-big-to-fail.margin.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*