Begrudgingly Yeast (@begrudginglyyeast.bsky.social) on bsky informed me that I should read this short story called ‘Death and the Gorgon’ by Greg Egan as he has a good handle on the subjects/subjects we talk about. We have talked about Greg before on Reddit.

I was glad I did, so going to suggest that more people he do it. The only complaint you can have is that it gives no real ‘steelman’ airtime to the subjects/subjects it is being negative about. But well, he doesn’t have to, he isn’t the guardian. Anyway, not going to spoil it, best to just give it a read.

And if you are wondering, did the lesswrongers also read it? Of course: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hx5EkHFH5hGzngZDs/comment-on-death-and-the-gorgon (Warning, spoilers for the story)

(Note im not sure this pdf was intended to be public, I did find it on google, but might not be meant to be accessible this way).

  • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems
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    2 days ago

    From Zack’s LessWrong post, last footnote:

    Though we’re unlikely to get it*, I’ve sometimes wished for a Greg Egan–Robin Hanson collaboration; I think Egan’s masterful understanding of the physical world and Hanson’s unsentimental analysis of the social world would complement each other well.

    Hell yeah dude!!! That’s almost as good as my idea for an Ursula K. Le Guin–Adolf Hitler collaboration! Can’t wait for GPT5!

    *

    lmao

    • David Gerard@awful.systemsM
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      1 day ago

      Egan already told Hanson to fuck off in a previous story, Zendegi:

      “My IQ is one hundred and sixty … You can always reach me through my blog, Overpowering Falsehood dot com, the number one site for rational thinking about the future —”

    • Soyweiser@awful.systemsOP
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      2 days ago

      lol that tweet. But yeah why don’t the people who write dystopian fiction about the torment nexus and the people who want to build torment nexusses together? Don’t they want to understand why we cannot make life slightly better for the poor tortured kid?