# slippery slope (drift)

*Ordinarily means:* A small change that can lead to much bigger problems over time.

Drift that narrows the window without crossing a wall, where each step stays within the usual range but the whole movement carries the thing toward a boundary no one is measuring.

- Computed level: L15 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: social  ·  Arena: moral behavior

## 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), [boundary](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-boundary.limit)

**Through:** passive

**Novel properties:**
- unnoticed movement toward edge

## Examples
- The F-35's software grew from 2 million to over 24 million lines of code across decades, complicating updates and testing. *(engineering)*
- Amazon's same-day delivery expanded from 3 cities to 120, increasing warehouse density and delivery fleet emissions. *(economics)*
- The human genome accumulates an average of 70 new mutations per generation, most neutral but some altering disease risk. *(biology)*

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