Week 10: Trainees, Testing, Real Estate

Three case studies in comparative involution, checked against each other for where the mechanism actually holds and where it's just a metaphor

10 May 2027

Outline#

• K-pop trainee systems: years of unpaid training weighed against debut odds that fall as the industry scales
• admissions races: test-preparation escalation that raises everyone’s score and no one’s relative rank
• housing as a positional good: bidding wars that price out the median buyer without adding a single dwelling
• what the three share structurally, and the point past which “involution” stops explaining and starts merely describing