{
  "id": "vicious-cycle.stacked",
  "term": "vicious cycle",
  "sense": "stacked",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 16,
  "arena": "human behavior",
  "domain": "social systems",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "a pattern where each outcome becomes the cause that drives the same outcome again, tightening the same boundary until no change can happen without crossing a wall",
  "folk_gloss": "a situation where one problem leads to another, which makes the first problem worse, repeating endlessly",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "cycle.loop",
      "dependence.condition",
      "boundary.limit",
      "drift.aimless",
      "parameter.condition"
    ],
    "interaction": "self-reinforcing",
    "novel_properties": [
      "feedback loop",
      "irreversible entrapment"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Aral Sea shrank by 90% after Soviet irrigation projects diverted rivers feeding it, reducing rainfall and increasing salinity in a feedback loop.",
      "domain": "environment"
    },
    {
      "text": "Chicago's 1995 heatwave killed 739 as power failures disabled cooling systems, worsening the grid load in a cascading outage.",
      "domain": "infrastructure"
    },
    {
      "text": "Greece's public debt exceeded 180% of GDP by 2013 after austerity reduced growth, forcing further borrowing to cover shortfalls.",
      "domain": "economics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "vicious circle",
    "vicious cycle"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — stacked dependency"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-vicious-cycle.stacked"
}