[dferr]

Good catch. Being a selected chapter in an otherwise obscure book(to me, pardon) i would have never known. It looks like the root site is littered with various articles, origin unknown, at least after a quick browse. Still, Since the title mentioned 'Involution' on a site about tech/startup growth, i am curious what the poster wanted to point out, if at all.

[andreasvc]

The system used on TrueReddit is nice: submitters are required to post a submission statement with every post, explaining in a few sentences why the post is interesting.

[randallsquared]

It seems interesting in itself, but perhaps gwern had an analogy with semiconductor progress, given yesterday's front-paging of the 5nm and 7nm goals.

[gwern]

Yes, that's one reason I bumped it up in my submission queue: nuclear bombs are an unusual area of engineering/science - a field which has basically perfected its craft as far a it will be permitted by the surrounding society, and is experienced that rarest of things, the endgame of a field.