The Egg (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Egg (2009)

#101

Post by wat10000 » Tue, Apr 01, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

bccdee wrote: post #78

wat10000 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the point is that the person in The Egg experiences every extreme example.

They live each life separately, though, with no memories of their other lives. Joe from Idaho isn't suffering in the moment because of the experiences of some poor sap halfway across the world, even if they're both part of a greater continuum. The character will only regain memory of all the events when they "hatch" & become a god, at which point (being divinely capable of remembering billions of lifetimes) they will…

As far as we know, people don’t remember anything after they die. Does that mean it’s no big deal to torture you to death? You won’t remember it.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#102

Post by synergy7 » Tue, Apr 01, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

Vastly parallel reinforcement-learning-like self-play with no obvious in-game real-time feedback loop. No breaks to explicitly integrate experience into strategy ("... there’s no point to doing that between each life.”). How the protagonist learns ("matures") in this game?

Re: The Egg (2009)

#103

Post by Gene5ive » Tue, Apr 01, 2025, 8:55 PM UTC

One of my favorite short stories

Re: The Egg (2009)

#104

Post by prawn » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 1:05 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #12

I really wish browsers would default to Reader mode for documents like this. It would make "web 1.0" content much more usable, and would encourage people to create simple HTML because the default styling wouldn't look like crap.

If it's not possible now, I wonder if there could be a meta tag whereby a site owner could assign a page to use any reader-mode available in the browser as a first preference?

Re: The Egg (2009)

#105

Post by disdi » Wed, Apr 02, 2025, 6:24 AM UTC

I think the story presents a thought-provoking concept about life, death, and reincarnation. The idea that all humans are essentially different incarnations of the same soul, experiencing every perspective across time to mature into something greater, is both mind-bending and oddly comforting. It’s a clever twist on the meaning of existence, blending philosophy with a cosmic narrative.