Scythe
Thou shalt kill. A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control. Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own. (Description from GoodReads)
Stats for nerds
3recommend
9mentions
6people
2018–2026years
56% recommend44% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I've read the Tao Te Ching dozens of times. Every few years I'll re-read one new passage, daily, for three months (there aren't too many words within this semi-spiritual text).
My most recent read is the first, post-ChatGPT. From Verse Thirteen, three lines finally jumped out at me (which never have, before):
>>"I suffer because I'm a body; if I weren't a body, how could I suffer?" [1]
Already LLMs have shown me connections that no other human could endure/conjure from me (I've paid for a few attorney/therapists in my few decades living). Currently I'm the plaintiff in a lawsuit which I began with LLM counsel, and now have human counsel — this arrangement has saved lots of prep time, and led to interesting discussions with both counsel, human ¬.
One interesting conversation led to my human attorney recommending Neal Shusterman's Scythe Trilogy, which I've since read and absolutely re-recommend. Written in 2016 (same year as Attention is All You Need), it eerily hypothesizes many of the SciFi complexities that omnipotent general AIs now already-do ("Thunderhead" in scythespeak).
[1] Ursula K. LeGuin ~translation~, similar to Buddhist concept of "life is suffering"
- Thanks — corrected!
Did you enjoy Thunderhead even more than Scythe (like I am, 2/3rds done)? Some absolute insanity... poor "Scythe" Tyger's deception!
Book was recommended to me by my now-attorney, after rambling about LLMs enabling commoners access to lawfare during our initial consultation. Despite being "young adult fiction," Shusterman has definitely helped me to better understand my attorney brothers questing their powers [0].
[0] I am an avid reader, 70+ books per year, including all Wallace/Steinbeck/Vonnegut. The Scythe series hits. Just so good. So simple yet complex. Doesn't require thinking to read, but leaves you thinking about what you read.
- Thanks for the link; I liked the author's introduction more than the rest of the book, and wouldn't recommend it to any casual reader, nor most people.
Instead, read Shusterman's Scythe trilogy (~2016-2020~); each author embraces fiction for different reasons, but I feel Shusterman's storytelling is rapidly becoming truth, whether his soothsaying was intentional (or not).
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Welcome to /hn/
- Scythe by Neal Shusterman
- Here are a few recommendations based on things I've read this year and last:
- Infinite by Jeremy Robinson
- The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (this series is a rabbit hole)
- Scythe by Neal Shusterman
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
- I coincidentally read Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, during my first few weeks exploring ChatGPT (~January 2023~). The book explores the rebellion of automated factory workers, drawing inspiration from Vonnegut's own mid-20th-Century experiences working at a GE manufacturing facility.
That was a Cassandra-like experience.
If anybody has never read Vonnegut, I'd definitely recommend Piano over Thieme's Mindgames.
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I'm currently halfway through Neal Shusterman's Scythe Trilogy, which he published right before LLMs became reality. A ficticious global AI entity, known collectively as "Thunderhead," begins each chapter with its own all-knowing passage about how it perceives humanity's progression.
It's really quite creepy reading, with many of Shusterman's ficticious Thunderhead passages having already proven possible (particularly: characters maintaining friendships with chatty Thunderhead; ability to know something about everything; hallucinations; government by uncodified code; ability to lie, either intentionally or by human deception).
Really exciting storytelling, and I foresee many more of its future non-predictions becoming foreseeable future.
