snowball effect · stacked-dependency

A change that grows because each next step depends on the size achieved by the previous, until the weight of prior accumulation drives further accumulation without need for new cause.

Snowball effect (noun) means: A change that grows because each next step depends on the size achieved by the previous, until the weight of prior accumulation drives further accumulation without need for new cause. It emerges from drift, dependence, growth, momentum: stacked dependency. In the EmergenceLexicon it sits at computed level 19, chaining down to the four foundations (space, time, energy, pattern).

ordinarily means: When a small thing grows bigger by picking up more of the same as it goes.

Examples

• The 2008 financial crisis accelerated as mortgage defaults raised credit insurance costs, triggering more defaults. economics
• Avalanches grow rapidly when falling snow increases speed, entraining more snowpack from the mountainside. physics
• Wikipedia's first 10,000 articles took months; the next 100,000 came faster as editors attracted more editors. computing

Emergence

Chain to foundations

Neighborhood

Concepts that depend on this one above; what it is built from below.

Provenance