this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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Funny but I have an itch to note that this is a simple infinite loop, not a recursion.
What is capitalism if not recursion? Spending more and more resources on falling into a bottomless pit.
Not to be pedantic, and I do appreciate the humor, but that's not recursion either :3 Recursion doesn't need to be endless. Recursive functions can absolutely have logical termination.
What does capitalism do but logically terminate resources?
But note taken. I just think the comparison is inspiring.
Logically terminating resources does not imply a terminating logic loop. Clever wordplay, though.
Recursion has a specific definition. It means solving a problem by breaking a process down into smaller and smaller self-similar pieces until reaching the "base case". In programming, it (almost) always means a function that calls itself as part of its internal logic. Depending on what the function does and the conditions for returning a value from the function, it may do that one time, many times, or not at all. A classic example is the Boggle solver.
I did say I was being pedantic :P
Oh, I meant the ping pong loop of the GitHub bot and it was pure technical nitpicking. But since you're asking, the definition of recursion is a function calling itself. I find it difficult thinking about capitalism as a single function. For me it looks more like running an infinite loop on finite resources. But applying a technical term as a metaphor leaves a lot of room for interpretation, so there is no right or wrong