Don't Ask for Recipes in a Warming Pot

I attended a workshop last month, where we discussed biometric authentication for a new banking app. A junior developer, barely 22, casually proposed a feature: continuous facial recognition through the phone’s front camera to "proactively verify" the user during the entire session. He wasn't being dystopian; he was being efficient. The most senior person in the room just nodded and said, "Interesting. What's the battery drain?" Nobody questioned the fundamental premise.

It struck me then that my job is to innovate, to push for the next big thing. But the most successful innovation of the last two decades hasn't been the smartphone or AI. It's been the normalization of crazy. We have been expertly trained to accept trade-offs that would have seemed outrageous just a few years ago, all in the name of convenience.

We're like the proverbial frog in the pot, happily asking for recipes while the water temperature slowly creeps toward a boil. 

It’s a tale as old as time, really. It turns out that tyranny and the slow erosion of liberty rarely arrive with a thunderclap and a villain's monologue. Instead, they show up with a user-friendly interface, a reassuring smile, and a series of small, reasonable-sounding requests. 

One German woman, named Dora

A Stroll Through History's "Agree" Buttons

If you think I'm being dramatic, let's look at the historical beta testers for this particular societal software. The Romans, for instance, were absolutely exhausted by chaos. Decades of civil wars, political gangs, and general instability made the promise of order look like the hottest new product on the market. When Augustus came along and offered to restore stability in exchange for, you know, the minor detail of absolute power, the people weren't just compliant; they were enthusiastic customers. At one point, citizens were so desperate for a strongman that they literally locked senators in a building, threatening to burn them alive unless Augustus was named dictator. They clicked "Agree" on the end of their republic because the alternative was just too inconvenient.

Fast forward to 1930s Germany. The slide into totalitarianism wasn't a single, horrifying leap but a series of small, incremental updates that slowly made the unthinkable seem mundane. First, there was an "inciting incident"—the Reichstag Fire—which served as the perfect pretext to suspend pesky constitutional protections. Then came the steady rollout of new "features": laws excluding Jews and political opponents from jobs, then limiting Jewish students in schools, then forbidding them from working in journalism. 

The anecdotes from the period are what really get you. One German woman, Dora, recalled her Jewish neighbors just sort of... disappearing, and she was led to believe they had simply "emigrated overseas". It’s the ultimate example of not questioning the patch notes. "Oh, the Goldbergs are gone? Must have been that new emigration feature they rolled out. Hope they have a nice trip!" This wasn't because people were necessarily evil, but because the regime had achieved total control over the flow of information, making its narrative the only one available. 

Even in Chile, after Pinochet’s violent military coup, the real trick was institutionalizing terror so it became part of the daily routine. The regime was so effective at this rebranding that it eventually erased the word "dictatorship" from school curricula, replacing it with the much friendlier term "the government of Pinochet." It's a brilliant marketing move, really. It’s not surveillance; it’s “community safety.”

A 16-year-old boy in a camp, Stanley Hayami, wrote in his diary about being encouraged to volunteer for the U.S. Army from behind barbed wire

So, What's in Our Terms and Conditions?

The United States also provides its own case studies for trading freedom for the feeling of security. After World War I, a few bombings served as the pretext for the Palmer Raids, which saw thousands of immigrants and perceived anarchists rounded up and detained without due process. A similar rationale was employed on a larger scale during World War II, when the internment of over 110,000 Japanese American citizens was justified as a necessary protection of democratic ideals, despite being based entirely on their ethnicity. The most chilling anecdote from that era? A 16-year-old boy in a camp, Stanley Hayami, wrote in his diary about being encouraged to volunteer for the U.S. Army from behind barbed wire, just "to show that we are truly Americans". That is the final stage of normalization: when you are so psychologically invested in the system that you feel compelled to prove your loyalty to your own jailer. 

Today, our "inciting incidents" aren't just physical attacks; they are economic anxieties, deep political divisions, and social unrest. We're repeatedly told that the old rules no longer apply in the face of these modern crises. In this environment, we are asked to agree to new terms. We accept political rhetoric that demonizes fellow citizens as "enemies," a classic tool for manipulating public opinion. We normalize the idea that previously sacred democratic norms can be bent or broken for political expediency. We are offered leaders who promise to restore order and security, a bargain that sounds appealing when people feel a lack of control. The price of admission is often just a small compromise, a minor deviation from the norm, which, over time, becomes the new standard. 

The Un-Agree Button

The lesson from history isn't that people are gullible sheep. It’s that we are all vulnerable to gradualism. The most dangerous threats are the ones that make each step down the ladder feel like a minor, acceptable compromise. The only antidote is to consciously retain our ability to be shocked by what should be shocking.

So, the next time a new societal "feature" is rolled out—one that would have been unthinkable a decade ago—it’s worth reading the patch notes with a healthy dose of suspicion. The "Un-Agree button" isn't a setting on a screen; it's a critical mindset. It's the conscious act of refusing to beta-test a future you don’t want to live in. After all, the frog in the pot doesn't get a user satisfaction survey before it's cooked. It just gets boiled.