Neijuan • Hacker News Board

Re: Neijuan

#11

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

lensecat wrote: post #10

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 w…

What if you looked at scheduling? Like, an assistant or agent scheduling a calendar something?

It's atomic, and one can't usually add value beyond a low threshold. If we're seeing more words–or tokens–used over time for a task which one cannot reasonably argue has gotten more complicated in that time, it would be direct evidence of involution. If you can relate that to competition for VC dollars or customers, that takes you over to Neijuan.

Re: Neijuan

#12

Post by jamessb » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 10:13 AM UTC

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

Re: Neijuan

#13

Post by mark_something » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 10:29 AM UTC

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.

Re: Neijuan

#14

Post by klibertp » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 10:40 AM UTC

netmare wrote: post #5

hirako2000 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't pointing at particular system to blame. But if you feel like it's raining, it probably is.

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

Interestingly, an almost identical proverb exists in Polish ("him" is replaced with "swine" canonically, but it's often replaced by a person's name). It's used to suggest that someone is either too dumb or too self-assured to accept criticism. Is the intended meaning similar in Greek?

Re: Neijuan

#15

Post by nixon_why69 » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 11:14 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

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

In China, one could look at hours of homework, work hours etc and conclude there's a reason the term was coined.

Re: Neijuan

#16

Post by torginus » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 11:18 AM UTC

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.

Re: Neijuan

#17

Post by torginus » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 11:20 AM UTC

lensecat wrote: post #4

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

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

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 litera…

Tbh, most people in the West would know that concept as the red queen's race from Alice in Wonderland.

Re: Neijuan

#18

Post by wangxili1997 » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 11:27 AM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Neijuan

#19

Post by nixon_why69 » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 11:36 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11

lensecat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

What if you looked at scheduling? Like, an assistant or agent scheduling a calendar something? It's atomic, and one can't usually add value beyond a low threshold. If we're seeing more words–or tokens–used over time for a task which one cannot reasonably argue has gotten more complicated in that time, it would be direct evidence of involution. If you can relate that to competition for VC dollars or customers, that ta…

The usage of Neijuan as I understand it isn't about a complete lack of results, Chinese test scores are really good, but there's only 10% in the top 10% so competing even harder just means everyone is miserable competing for the same number of spots. Same for production if it's driving prices down, you did produce more, but so did everyone else and the end result is a race to the bottom.

Re: Neijuan

#20

Post by 0wis » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 12:19 PM UTC

Definitely a concept that should be diffused and discussed in France, especially in preparation of next elections for which anti-capitalist sentiment is quite high.