Involution refers to the phenomenon that human society stagnates or cannot be transformed into another advanced model after reaching a certain form at a certain stage of development. The earliest "source" of "involution" is a few pictures of top students in famous schools. The picture is like this: some people read books on bicycles, some people have books piled up on their dormitory beds, and some people even write papers on their computers while riding bicycles.

In recent years, "involution" is a particularly popular word on the Internet in China. It is generally used to describe excessive competition in a certain field, which leads people to enter a state of conflict and internal friction.

The English name of involution is evolution, which corresponds to evolution, that is, evolution intuitively, involution is "inward evolution". Broadly speaking, all meaningless consumption can be called involution.

Which situations are involution?

1, meaningless Excellence is involution;

2. It is involution that complicates simple problems;

3. In order to avoid responsibility, passive coping is involution;

4. Work that seriously deviates from the expected goal is also involuted;

5. Low-level imitation and replication are typical involution;

6. Internal competition that limits creativity is a kind of institutional involution;

7. Endless excavation and research on the same problem is also an involution.

What stories are involved? Once upon a time, there was a small town on the earth. There are many shoe stores in the town. These shoe stores open every morning 10, take a lunch break from noon 12 to 2 pm, and continue to operate from 2 pm to 6 pm. It is open for 5 days every Monday to Friday and closed on weekends.

In the hottest summer, the shoe store owner will close the store and go to the seaside in the south for a holiday; In the coldest winter, the shoe store owner will also close the store and go skiing in the mountains in the north.

Over the years, the permanent population in the town has not changed, the quality of shoes has been excellent and the supply is stable. Therefore, the supply and demand of shoes in the town has been in a nearly perfect balance.

Then one day, for some reason, the family moved from a big city to a small town and opened a shoe store. Although the town is small, it has a certain scale, and the balance between supply and demand of shoes will not be broken by adding a shoe store.

However, people in that big city are famous for their diligence and endurance. Sure enough, this family from a big city also has these characteristics. Their shoe store opens at 7 o'clock every morning, does not take a lunch break at noon, and closes at 1 1 in the evening; They are also open on weekends and never go on holiday in summer and winter.

Gradually, their "diligence" paid off, and the business of their shoe store was obviously better than that of other shoe stores in the town. In the past, people in small towns could not buy shoes after dinner, but now, they can buy shoes in people's shoe stores in big cities almost at any time, so there is no need to patronize other shoe stores.

However, the town owners are not convinced. They follow the schedule of people in big cities, working 7 days a week and 0/6 hours a day. Their "diligence" has also been "rewarded": their business income has returned to its previous state.

So, what changes have taken place in town life at this time? Because the population of the town has not increased and the demand for shoes remains the same as before, the final operating income of each shoe store has not changed and will not increase.

But the business hours have changed from 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, to one day 16 hours, 7 days a week.

In other words, their working hours have become longer, but their income has not increased.

This is the legendary involution. At the same time, this is also the legendary prisoner's dilemma.