Week 3 Session: Crit: Spot the Involution

Bring one system you're part of and argue, to a skeptical room, whether it's involuted or just competitive

8 March 2027

Before the session

Pick a system you’re actually in — a course, a team, a hobby community — and work out whether effort in it is rising, and whether outcomes are rising to match.

In the session

Present the system in two minutes. The room cross-examines: is this involution, or just a system that’s genuinely getting harder to win?

Afterwards

Systems that survive cross-examination as “genuinely involuted” go on the running class list — this semester’s evidence base, built collectively.

The spec

What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.

you can distinguish involution from ordinary competition using Geertz's test, not just a feeling
you can name what a win would look like in the system you picked, and whether anyone is getting closer to it

Teaching team

Aaron Jin — Convenor, Lecturer & Tutor; 卷王 (Involution King)