# boiling the frog (drift)

*Ordinarily means:* slow changes that go unnoticed until it's too late

drift of a parameter through a window where no single change crosses a wall, so the thing persists until it does not, and the model did not expect it

- Computed level: L14 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: everyday phrase  ·  Arena: emergence

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [drift](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-drift.aimless), [window](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-window.range), [wall](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wall.range-end), [model](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-model.representation)

**Through:** parameter change that is slow enough that the self-model does not update, so the window closes without a report

**Novel properties:**
- emergent.window

## Examples
- Detroit's water department cut pressure in unused pipes from 2000 to 2010, leading to widespread contamination by 2014. *(engineering)*
- The Aral Sea shrank by 90% after decades of incremental irrigation diversions starting in the 1960s. *(environment)*
- US inflation rose from 2% to 9% between 2020 and 2022 as the Fed held rates near zero. *(economics)*

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