Boiling the Frog..what does it mean??

Recent convo with a friend ran thus:

Friend: bla bla bla..it's a classic example of boiling the frog I tell you!..bla bla

Me: Wait! What does 'boiling the frog' mean?

Friend: Oh. You say it to mean sorta culturing people to think or feel a certain way. Without them knowing that this is being done to them. Ok?

Me: Ok. But what does the phrase itself mean? Why frog? Why not..er..boiling the ant? Or elephant?

Friend: Dunno. That's the phrase. So listen.. bla bla bla.

The convo ended thus. My question then was where is this phrase rooted??

And at last I've found the answer!

Apparently (I've not tried this and have no wish to and hence will rely on hearsay) if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water it'll try to jump out cos it'd rather not get boiled to death. But if you throw it into cold water and slowly bring the water to boiling point it will not realize it is overheating and will die.

Apparently this is cos frogs are cold-blooded and so takes on the temperature of its surroundings. Hence the frog will continue to warm, adjusting to the temperature of the slowly boiling water till it overheats.

So, this could work in terms of implicit prejudices- over-exposure to the same bias can cement it unknowingly or at least till it's too late.

Let's see if this works in other contexts:

If someone (let's say a govt for the lack of a better example) announces: Today you will go to war. Today your loved ones will kill people. Today your loved ones will possibly die.

There could possibly be lotsa people jumping up and down protesting just as the frog will try to jump out of the boiling water.

BUT if someone (let's use say the govt again! Just for fun!) were to say it thus: people such as you and I have been wronged. They're being hurt and continue to be hurt (by whatever way). So let us go save them. Let us go defend them. Now, that that is done, let us go see if we can defend some other parts/ peoples. Some of your loved ones can die doing this. Let us go on an offensive to retake what is yours and mine. It is only cos of your loved ones that today we have what we have. Let us thank those who died for us.

The frog never really stood a chance, did he? Poor sucker.

Now, this works with frogs cos of their cold-blooded nature. But we humans are warm-blooded creatures. Therefore we should not (biologically) take on the temperature of our surroundings.

Now think.

Warm-blooded? Cold-blooded?

Frog? Human?