What does the boiled frog syndrome mean?

Answer 1

If you drop a frog into hot water, it will immediately jump out. If you put a frog in cool water and heat it, it will stay and die because it does not feel the sudden heat.

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For further explanation:

Let's do an experiment. A scientist, who will now be christened Fred, has two beakers, beaker A and beaker B. Fred places the beakers onto two identical heaters, and places two identical frogs, frog A and frog B, into their respective beakers.

In beaker A, Fred turns the heater onto its maximum setting. Frog A, sensing the immediate increase in heat, leaps out of the beaker shortly after the heater is turned on.

In beaker B, Fred turns the heater on, not to its maximum setting, but to a low setting so the water is heated gradually. The frog, quite comfortable with the gradual increase in heat, notices nothing unusual. Eventually, the water starts boiling and, poor frog B is boiled to death despite having the complete ability to jump out.

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This phenomenon is very real (don't try this at home), and is often used as an analogy to human beings and global warming/just about any gradual problem. The human race is a frog, and, supposedly, gradual changes will eventually boil us to death because we will not take action against something that we do not really notice.

For example, if, over a period of 30 years, say 1980 through now, the government repeals laws meant to prevent monopolies, and monopolies do in fact grow, and fewer and fewer companies and CEOs gradually get more and more power over what we can hear and watch, we don't notice it so we let them control our minds.

Hope that helps!