2d ago

Death and the Gorgon - Greg Egan

asimovs.com /wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DeathGorgon_Egan.pdf

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).

13 comments

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!

I love this. Especially the ending, talking about the titanic struggle to make AI competent enough to outsmart the people who think it's going to be omniscient. Glad to see I've got another writer to chase down that I had somehow missed previously.

I've avoided reading Greg Egan until like last year because I entirely expected him to be a cold stemlord shithead and people only talk about his earlier books that have more to do with consciousness and identity and stuff, which these days feels very zzzzz, but he is SO COOL and SO FUN!!! He cares in a deep way about people, lived experience, about societies, he loves physics and maths in themselves because they're beautiful and fun and not because they're ways to look smart or reveal the secrets of the universe, his books are very beautiful. Complete opposite of Yud, Scott, nostalgebraist (I have a grudge) et al.'s silly books.
- @AmoebaGirl He’s also a fun follow on here if you like math
- I saw people complain his characters had no debt and character or something because they all were so agreeable, and I was a bit confused. (I have not read any of his earlier work, some of it I wanted to read but never got around to, mentally pushed it further upward now) but it was odd to see that comment after reading this short story. I mean yes they were agreeable (after all they had to work together) but it revealed a lot of character. This bit alone: '“So what do you call mine?” Ken asked bravely. “Peak Conformist,” Helen replied. Ken laughed, unoffended.'

Thanks for posting this, it was entertaining.

This was a year before the stuff with the Zizians happened too.
- And the healthcare CEO.

From the comments of the LW article.
"I like and admire both Charles Stross and Greg Egan a lot but I think they both have "singularitarians" or "all of their biggest fans" or something like that in their Jungian Shadow.
I'm pretty sure they like money. Presumably they like that we buy their books? Implicitly you'd think that they like that we admire them. But explicitly they seem to look down on us as cretins as part of them being artists who bestow pearls on us... or something?"
- It took me one (1) science-fiction convention to discover that liking the same TV show as somebody does not mean we vibrate on the same soul wavelength. I imagine that professional writers learn rather quickly that just because somebody bought your book doesn't mean that you want to spend time with them.
- Yes the rationalists are an incredibly large market and their opinion can make or break an author, sure you betcha

Nit: It's "Death and the Gorgon".
It's linked here, so I'll hazard a guess that the copy is intended to be public.
- Thank you, fixed. And thanks for looking it up.

13 comments