Neijuan: The Chinese Term for a Dead Loop Where Everyone Works Harder for Nothing
Neijuan, or involution, describes a system that intensifies without producing more output. From Tsinghua's 'Involuted King' to 996 work culture and Haidian's education arms race, it captures a society trapped in cutthroat competition. Anthropologist Xiang Biao calls it 'a dead loop in which people constantly force themselves'—a race no one can fail or exit.
Neijuan is a dead loop in which people constantly force themselves, a race that participants are not allowed to fail or exit.
- jamessb
For context, this article has probably been posted as it is linked to by the "Astra for Coding: Why Are We Doing This Again?" blog post [1] currently being discussed [2].
- gcanyon
I'm surprised that article doesn't reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race
- tantalor
> Goldenweiser uses Māori decorative art as an example. The development of art was done within the framework of already existing patterns. The final pieces were elaborate and complicated in appearance but fundamentally the same as existing art.
Jeez, what an asshole.
- torginus
What I love about the Chinese is how incredibly aware and self-reflective they are about the wheel of suffering they are building for themselves.
- kjshsh123
>When capital owners are driven by competition they must work increasingly more for little or no marginal gain despite falling prices for consumers so price fixing or 'price leadership' becomes impossible.
A lot of the people in the comments here seem to miss that this explicitly isn't about workers or feeling overworked and if anything should make the average consumer better off.