{
  "id": "paper-tiger.untested",
  "term": "paper tiger",
  "sense": "untested",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 16,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A thing whose reach others read as wide while it is narrow, so its walls on them hold only until someone tests them.",
  "folk_gloss": "something that looks threatening but has no real strength",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "reach.action",
      "model.representation",
      "others.distinct-entities",
      "wide.spatial",
      "narrow.spatial",
      "wall.range-end",
      "test.assessment",
      "reputation.social-model",
      "power.over",
      "hold.physical",
      "read.information",
      "someone.person",
      "time.dimension"
    ],
    "interaction": "Others' models set walls on themselves out of a reach that is not there; the power is real exactly as long as no one acts to check it, and the first test ends it all at once.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "power held entirely in others' models",
      "walls that last until tested",
      "an ending that arrives in one step"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Mao used 'paper tiger' in 1946 for the United States and its atomic bomb: apparently overwhelming, ineffective against a determined opponent.",
      "domain": "politics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "reputation.social-model",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "reputation is any model others hold; a paper tiger is reputation for reach it lacks"
    },
    {
      "id": "sleeping-giant.unread",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "the inverse: reach that others see and the self does not"
    },
    {
      "id": "sandbagging.understated",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "OTHERS-READ over vs under"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "paper tiger",
    "paper tigers"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-28",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-paper-tiger.untested"
}