Neijuan

jamessb•27 minutes ago

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].

[1]: https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/9/7/astra-why/

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49654229

mark_something•10 minutes ago

IME, when words like this become common, it allows people to identify them more easily, so it's a good thing to introduce such words.

JumpCrisscross•about 2 hours ago

Has it been measured? Or is this more of a qualitative critique?

lensecat•about 1 hour ago

In western thought, this is mostly related to the concept of involution.

The most famous study is on Javanese farming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Involution

In terms of software development, here's a blogpost from 2025, by a professor at Sussex Uni: https://stunlaw.blogspot.com/2025/07/involution-and-artifici...

There are also some studies in China on the concept but I'm less familiar with that literature.

JumpCrisscross•about 1 hour ago

Thank you for the Berry post. Has anyone tried to test his hypothesis? My gut feeling is it will check out, particularly for AI chats. Input measure is easy–you have time and text quantity. But output value is more difficult...I'm wondering if there is a good case where this could be observed.

lensecat•about 1 hour ago

I'm doing a PhD in sociology of work (I have a background in software development) and want to do such a study on software development with AI, but as you say it's quite hard to find a good setting, because it's hard to operationalise quality.

I have been thinking of measuring it along these lines perhaps... https://www.gitclear.com/the_ai_code_quality_maintainability...

But they have a closed sourced software so I would have to find or create an open one in that case.

Happy to hear if you have any ideas on study design!

hirako2000•about 1 hour ago

It isn't pointing at particular system to blame.

But if you feel like it's raining, it probably is.

JumpCrisscross•about 1 hour ago

> It isn't pointing at particular system to blame

It's hypothesising a phenomenon. I'm looking for a measure. The phenomenon is intuitively correct, but also suspiciously attractive. Sort of like the bullshit-job (or corrupt-bureaucrat) hypotheses, where every job or public official one doesn't like can be conveniently terms bullshit absent any rigour.

netmare•about 1 hour ago

There's a Greek proverb disputing the latter: they are spitting on him and he thinks it's raining.

anovikov•about 1 hour ago

"1920s style crisis of overproduction with Chinese characteristics"

Neijuan

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