{
  "id": "good-enough.threshold",
  "term": "good enough",
  "sense": "threshold",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 16,
  "arena": "emergence theory",
  "domain": "everyday language",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "The nearness of a wall where maintenance has stopped because the model assumes the current state will persist, though drift is already narrowing the window.",
  "folk_gloss": "Acceptable without being perfect.",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "wall.range-end",
      "drift.aimless",
      "maintenance.upkeep",
      "model.representation",
      "window.range",
      "narrow.spatial"
    ],
    "interaction": "model and drift",
    "novel_properties": [
      "emergent window"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Fukushima Daiichi reactors required continuous cooling even after shutdown, but backup batteries lasted only 8 hours when external power failed.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Aral Sea shrank by 90% after Soviet irrigation diverted rivers that once sustained its water level.",
      "domain": "environment"
    },
    {
      "text": "Windows XP remained in use on 25% of PCs a decade after support ended, exposing systems to unpatched vulnerabilities.",
      "domain": "computing"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "good enough"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — the moving wall"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-good-enough.threshold"
}