We’re All Frogs Boiling in Water

There’s an old (semi true) parable about frogs boiling in water. While not literal it’s a fun and instructive metaphor for change.

It goes like this: if you put a frog in boiling water it will sense the hot water and immediately jump out yet if you put it into cold water and very gradually turn up the temperature in the water the frog won’t notice and will stay in until it has boiled to death.

There’s some metaphorical truth to this in our everyday lives. When we’re faced with shocking changes the societal impact becomes immediate and obvious. An example would be an economic shocks that caused mass job loss and unemployment as happened after the dot-com crash, 9/11 and again in Sept 08. In times like these we reflect more about life in general and about the impacts technology has on our lives and on our society.

But most technology impacts us in imperceptible frog-boiling like ways.

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