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sarreph 24 hours ago [-]
OP here - longtime HN user. I submitted this story to a writing contest a few months back, but didn’t hear anything from them.
I posted it here on a punt and getting front page of HN is 10x the feeling any writing contest could give me!
Thanks to all who read and commented, and glad to hear it resonates with some of you!
[EDIT]: There've been a lot more comments since I wrote this one. I want you all to know that I've read every single comment and am ever so grateful for everyone who responded here / took the time to read the story!
xp84 23 hours ago [-]
You're a great writer. I haven't read a lot recently, but this was the type of story that I really could not stop reading.
I also didn't see that it said "This is a short story" at the top, so I read more than half thinking it was nonfiction. Heh.
apt-apt-apt-apt 13 hours ago [-]
Wish I had known it was fiction – read half of it thinking it was real.
sarreph 5 hours ago [-]
Very kind of you to say.
Also see a lot of comments echoing your point about missing the fact that it was fiction... Next post might have a stronger disclaimer! (But I fear it actually worked in my favour here)
acorn221 4 hours ago [-]
Damn Rory, I didn't know you wrote fiction! Nice work here
madradavid 23 hours ago [-]
My god, for a minute there I thought this was real..
This resonates, I bet a number of us know or Are an “Aaron”.
Thanks for this.
xp84 23 hours ago [-]
I'll admit, I was really hoping the end was going to be like, "And that's how Aaron Kalshi created a £XX billion company."
raajg 22 hours ago [-]
THIS!
archon810 12 hours ago [-]
I thought it was going to be about Aaron Swartz.
altilunium 9 hours ago [-]
I immediately noticed something was wrong when the "daily tech message board" appeared. Before that point, I 100% believed that this was a real story.
suriyaG 23 hours ago [-]
This is incredibly well written had me hooked till the end (probably because I thought it was a real life incident. :)
gwbas1c 5 hours ago [-]
I enjoyed the story!
Opinion
The ending is quite abrupt, I'd consider another short scene. Perhaps one at Aaron's funeral where there's a little more exposition about the shooter, such as with a conversation with Aaron's mom, or with the wider group of friends. For example, we don't know if the bet was paid out, or if the bettor had some relationship to the shooter.
The shooting itself could have a bit more conflict and tension. Imagine if, for example, there was some kind of animosity due to a fight between Aaron and the narrator. (Instead of them drifting apart.) Then imagine that the narrator saw the bet before the race, saw someone suspicious, put two and two together, and tried to warn Aaron?
Anyway, great story!
JKCalhoun 4 hours ago [-]
"The ending is quite abrupt"
As was the ending of the young man's life.
It works perfectly as is. Often in life there is no denouement.
emadabdulrahim 15 hours ago [-]
This reads so well I was supposed to go out for a workout but I couldn't stop until I finished it.
Incredibly engaging yet simple writing that flows well.
Otterly99 10 hours ago [-]
Super cool story!
I actually had to look up "Come bet on Aaron’s life with us" to make sure it wasn't real.
I also liked your WhatWeSee art exhibition, pretty interesting concept.
BrunoBernardino 23 hours ago [-]
Congratulations! As someone who's written (micro and short) fiction for many years, I _feel_ how hard it is to get someone to read it. Enjoy it!
nicbou 10 hours ago [-]
I love your website. The lists page is a brilliant idea and I might steal it from you. Human curation is such a luxury.
sgt101 22 hours ago [-]
Good story, write more. You have a good NO AI style.
raajg 22 hours ago [-]
Couldn't stop reading! It's been an embarrassingly long amount of time since I got hooked to something like this. Keep going!
kiq 10 hours ago [-]
great story. thank you for sharing, it perfectly captures whats going on right now with betting apps...
suprfnk 23 hours ago [-]
Very well written! I haven't read such a long piece on the internet for quite a while but this hooked me immediately, and kept me hooked.
Breath of fresh air between all the AI """writing""".
mikestorrent 18 hours ago [-]
It so was. It's amazing how easily we can all tell what's written by a real person these days. It's gotta be like the early days of CGI.... ten years from now it'll be so hard to tell :(
Thanks OP, great read
herbertl 22 hours ago [-]
I really enjoyed this! Thank you for writing and sharing.
fastidiousangle 12 hours ago [-]
fantastic - well done, couldn't stop reading!
chrisjj 9 hours ago [-]
Well done! Looking forward to your next.
Mistletoe 21 hours ago [-]
You write wonderfully, direct, heartfelt, human, real, the opposite of LLM output, and that’s the highest honor I can bestow.
thevivekshukla 22 hours ago [-]
Good story. I was hooked.
jimbob45 23 hours ago [-]
Why make him #5 in WoW of all games? Arena has never been that prestigious and most players primarily engaged in PvE rather than PvP, which didn’t have such rankings.
djriley 22 hours ago [-]
Aaron seems like the kind of guy who would sink a ton of time in to something so meaningless now, doesn't he?
brailsafe 12 hours ago [-]
PvE didn't necessarily have formal individual rankings at that time, but it sort of does now.
PvP was a perfectly legit thing to be sweaty about ranking in. I had about 3 friends who were in some of the top rankings for their battlegroup for their classes.
noman-land 21 hours ago [-]
He was #6.
chknkachunga 20 hours ago [-]
Superb storytelling. Thank you. This was fantastic.
JohnMakin 1 days ago [-]
I think this short story resonates because probably most people know an Aaron - the type that is incessantly looking for some kind of scheme, some kind of get rich quick thing, and will spend exponentially far more effort and misery suffered avoiding real employment than it would take actually just sucking it up and working, and often (usually) with much, much worse results. Yet they persist. A few of them become successful founders, probably, depending on their background. But most don't.
Krei-se 22 hours ago [-]
Don't listen to the quitters here kids, go chase your dream, it's worth it. Employment is just helping someone else reach theirs for a pat on the back.
You can do it, be resilient and stubborn, go against the grain and things start to work out.
Shocka1 5 hours ago [-]
Very black and white here - a person can easily do both by making a great living and working on side projects/dreams. Someday if the side hustle takes off, maybe even give great opportunities to others to have employment. And give them much more than a pat on the back, or whatever it is you are saying.
margalabargala 19 hours ago [-]
This is bad advice to give. It sets a lot of people up for failure with unreasonable expectations.
The correct advice to give is "don't do it. It's really hard and you'll probably fail".
Anyone who quits after receiving that advice was never going to make it anyway.
trompetenaccoun 18 hours ago [-]
"Most people fail, so better don't even try."
Is this genuinely the advice you'd give to someone who's less experienced in life? No wonder society is the way it is, most people have extremely low ambitions and then don't even bother working on those.
AnimalMuppet 18 hours ago [-]
I think you're ignoring the GP's last paragraph.
Maybe an intermediate position is to say, "Before you attempt to beat the odds, make sure you can survive the odds beating you." Because the odds are, they will.
trompetenaccoun 18 hours ago [-]
This is more of a question of personal philosophy/mindset, not logic. When you set yourself (or someone else) up for failure you've already failed and at that point there's nothing one can do. If you don't believe you can do something you won't do it. It's a loser's mindset. At the bare minimum you have to believe in yourself to be able to do things, no one else is going to do them for you.
austhrow743 17 hours ago [-]
Right, and if someone doesn't have the loser's mindset then reading "it's hard to beat the odds, don't try" wont deter them. So there's no loss there. It might deter someone with the loser's mindset though, and given that they weren't going to make it anyway if you knock them off track early then that's a benefit.
Tade0 8 hours ago [-]
Yeah. "My" Aaron, the last time we were in touch, was going in and out of Ukraine, transporting supplies between Russian bombardments.
People deterred by someone else's words usually internally hesitated anyway.
jongjong 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
19 hours ago [-]
JohnMakin 18 hours ago [-]
quitters dont generally make careers or stable jobs for themselves. you can rage against the man all you want, as long as you dont delude yourself into thinking you’ll ever be invited to the table or do anything but contribute to the status quo anyway. unless you went to a handful of schools and attended a handful of fraternities. cynical? yes, but that doesnt mean it isnt true. the proof is the overwhelming number of founders fail, even in hype markets.
everyone has their own status quos and goals.
ekianjo 15 hours ago [-]
yeah go buy lottery tickets kids instead of investing your time and money into something predictable
JohnMakin 24 hours ago [-]
When I was around that age, my Aaron was this kid who matched a similar description, very bright but utterly averse to any kind of work whatsoever, never finished his education, did okay in school but underperformed a lot.
I remember a few of his dumbest schemes - one, he would get gift visa cards, run the balance down to pennies, then as a restaurant server for some crappy chain, would charge a customer with a big tip, put it on the drained card, and due to some weird quirk with the way they processed tips back then, the money would hit his paycheck before the decline would happen. I pointed out it was stupid easy to get caught by the bank and his restaurant but he insisted it was genius and foolproof. Got caught in a month or two, fired, nearly got in a lot of legal trouble but somehow got out of it.
His all time dumbest 'scheme' was when a major automaker was going into bankruptcy at some point during the financial crisis, the stock was pennies. So he invested all his savings, some thousands of dollars, into buying the stocks. Even being so young and barely financially literate at that point I was aghast, tried to explain that when the bankruptcy finishes, his stock will be worth nothing. No, no, he assured me - imagine - this stock was $20 before, when it's $20 again I'll be a gazillionaire. I tried very very hard to convince him that was not correct and of course he lost everything. Shortly after he got into dealing marijuana but by that point I had determined he wasn't worth hanging out with anymore. No idea what happened to him.
tyre 24 hours ago [-]
What’s funny is that there was a bankrupt auto company that was memed back into existence. Hertz, by all logic, was absolutely doomed. Retail traders brought it back from near-certain liquidation and could have made a ton of money. Not sure how many actually sold.
JohnMakin 24 hours ago [-]
This was GM and as I roughly remember it there was no chance of this happening, because they just formed a new company and issued new stock after bankruptcy. Maybe hard for a young person at that time to understand, and the SEC probably shouldn't have allowed trading by the point he got into it, but it was all over the news and google was in its hayday, the information was easily available.
HappySweeney 22 hours ago [-]
They saved themselves by reporting rented cars as stolen and having them towed back to the lot so they could double-dip.
xp84 23 hours ago [-]
That's a shame to hear about - Hertz is one of the shittiest companies I know. It would have been great for the world if they had been liqudated!
satvikpendem 18 hours ago [-]
I wonder how he'd have fared in the 2021 meme stock era, no doubt talking about how we still need to HODL and his apr diamond hands strong.
alphazard 21 hours ago [-]
> NPC can't comprehend working hard on creative projects to avoid being a wage slave
tyre 24 hours ago [-]
Fantastic writing, very well done. Every small, incremental decision is believable. You can see how the psychosis evolves.
It made me think of Justin.tv, which was Justin Kan streaming himself. There weren’t betting markets, but today there would be.
Twitch—what it ended up as–shows how much people crave community. Like other social media, there are many examples in chats of people with believed friendships and parasocial relationships with streamers. For smaller streams, sometimes these are real casual friendships. For larger ones, it’s the dark other side of Aaron.
Anyway, I’m glad prediction markets didn’t exist in those days. I wish they didn’t now (we don’t need more outlets for gambling, in my opinion), but this was a great story nonetheless.
sarreph 24 hours ago [-]
Thank you for your kind words!
burningChrome 23 hours ago [-]
Best line in the story:
I had spent my whole life dreaming of making my own overnight success on the internet, but had taught someone with no ethics how to do it instead.
This is such a great line and one I know so many people related to as soon as they read it.
You're a great writer, thank you for this today.
DoctorOetker 22 hours ago [-]
But that is also basically what most intellectual jobs are, workers telling their boss what to do while pretending they are receiving and executing commands.
sarreph 21 hours ago [-]
Ah, thank you!
corndoge 1 days ago [-]
I like it because each individual piece can happen and we probably all know people by now that have some aspect of Aaron - massive AI use, or into prediction markets, or live streaming, or just a friend who we have learned over time lacks scruples, or have watched them fade in response to life's challenges. The combination of all of these is then easy to imagine and that idea makes a good story.
sarreph 24 hours ago [-]
Thank you for reading it!
greenfish6 1 days ago [-]
Powerful. And written so well, I thought it was real at first, I even forgot about the "this is a short story at the top" and googled Aaron's different betting websites
sarreph 24 hours ago [-]
Thank you, very kind of you to say!
stasomatic 3 hours ago [-]
Engaging story. As it is fiction, were you influenced by personal events to write it? I don't have Aarons like this in my life, but there is one childhood friend who'd take on risks I'd be afraid to myself. Still my best friend.
The airgun is a subtle touch. I am in Florida, all kinds of cowboys here, are BBs legal in the UK?
lazydon 21 hours ago [-]
Not sure why, but I thought this was going to be a friend of Aaron Swartz writing in memory of him.
nacs 16 hours ago [-]
I thought so too and scrolled the page looking for a last name. Then realized the ending was not the same. RIP
johndhi 19 hours ago [-]
Same
slim 21 hours ago [-]
we've been primed by the articles from jstor recently posted on hn
samizdis 23 hours ago [-]
I clicked on the HN link and, when I saw "short story", almost closed the tab ... but I started to read anyway. I found it compelling and disturbing from start to finish. Much as my opinions about writing count for nothing, I truly hope that you poat any future works here. A great read.
sarreph 21 hours ago [-]
Thank you so much. I do indeed plan on posting more work here in future... HN has given me the impetus I needed for that (and more) now!
curuinor 1 days ago [-]
Murder is always systematically kind of a dramatic act. We are definitely going to get a prediction market murder in <5 years, I think.
1dom 1 days ago [-]
I learned about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market in the early 2010s. It wasn't phrased like a prediction market focusing on when a person would die, but more like a bounty. If the bounty/pot got big enough, eventually it would be worth it for someone to do it.
Even thinking/writing about this now, it still makes obvious sense and I'm surprised it hasn't been seriously made yet with crypto: if there's a pot of billions, contributed to by millions, the incentive becomes not just about the money, but the adoration, protection and power that would come with doing so many people a favour.
nemomarx 1 days ago [-]
I think all the big targets for this kind of thing have the legal or government muscle to get in your way? Millions of people usually don't agree on someone dying unless they're powerful.
myhf 1 days ago [-]
Every prediction market is an assassination market. They claim to trade on "information" but it's more like "influence", and easiest way to influence an event is usually by sabotage.
stronglikedan 1 days ago [-]
a tale as old as time. e.g., fixing a fight or a game
ekianjo 15 hours ago [-]
thats already on a table when you place a prediction that is related to an Individual doing something. you dont even need to spell it out. not sure how we are going to regulate those
cindyllm 24 hours ago [-]
[dead]
gmmachine 19 hours ago [-]
To OP:
Well written. Certainly bridges the gap between fiction and a plausible and believable first person narrative.
Are you familiar with the US magazine The Sun? https://www.thesunmagazine.org/
I have read several short story submissions at The Sun; typically first person submissions which blur the lines between true first person stories, and fiction.
Try to submit your story to The Sun.
sarreph 9 hours ago [-]
I have not heard of The Sun (only the UK tabloid!) -- thank you for sharing that. I will submit my story there!
cednore 16 hours ago [-]
Am not a native English speaker, and I don't read stories much. Mostly the reason why I am at HN is to seek for tech news and learn something. But your story made a record to stuck me at a single page for 15+ mins. I need to tell you that i do have minor problem with my eyes, thus can't keep up with a almost-static screen for 5+ mins. But this one made me rub my eyes every 30 seconds but keep reading on.
I can't tell what I felt in the ending paragraph, but I can be sure of this is the strongest outcome I felt, from an web page.
Congrats, again.
sarreph 9 hours ago [-]
I'm glad I was able to give you something enjoyable to read! Thank you.
osullivj 11 hours ago [-]
Lovely bit of writing. I enjoyed being drawn in, and the dawning realisation that it is fiction. Aaron as a malign archetype was great too; techie Widmerpool even! One note of mild criticism: the narrator seems entirely passive, with none of his own life events.
actionfromafar 10 hours ago [-]
I think the passive narrator worked very well, a person kind of stuck in life would have had energy to spare for interacting with Aaron.
hitekker 22 hours ago [-]
Reads a bit like an elevated resentment fantasy. A mostly ethical narrator narrating his friend’s morally deserved doom that keeps the narrator’s own hands mostly clean. And with the narrator holding a medal at the end.
That’s cathartic for some. For me, the narrator rather resembles one of the local tech millionaires, envious of the billionaires. The story doesn’t seem to know the narrator’s dishonesty.
rfool 21 hours ago [-]
Good point! I also got that impression and that made this story feel shady and finally even boring, resulting in an empty aftershade, mentally.
However, taste modulates wildly.
wasmperson 20 hours ago [-]
I think the narrator is the murderer and is lying about the man in the gray tracksuit. The repeated criticism of Aaron's moral character is a sort of rationalization for having killed him, with the underlying motive actually being a combination of greed and envy. Remember that the funds used to kick-start the trading platform came from a hackathon win that Aaron "stole".
hankbond 16 hours ago [-]
I really enjoyed this piece. I thought the idea was creative and believable. It really sucked me in and kept the momentum going. I have a feeling it's going to stick with me for a while.
I am absolutely not a writer so take this with a big grain of salt.
Something about narrator felt like they weren't a real character and the whole story was just Aaron's third person. Maybe because the narrator didn't seem to have any intentional effect on Aaron's trajectory? Not sure if that was meant as a way to deepen that aspect of the story, but at times it felt a little awkward.
sarreph 9 hours ago [-]
Thank you for your feedback!
> Something about narrator felt like they weren't a real character and the whole story was just Aaron's third person.
That wasn't my intention, but others have pointed out the passiveness of the narrator. The narrator is supposed to be a character in the story in this instance. Will bear this in mind for future first-person narratives.
I think it was some regions in Cloudflare (in this case a European one) not having all of the static `vinext` JS files ready immediately at deploy time, and then a `404` on that region sticking around due to very aggressive cacheing.
bertman 12 hours ago [-]
You can read the story in the html source.
elias_t 11 hours ago [-]
Same here
doright 23 hours ago [-]
Some people have always had qualities like Aaron's, and giving them tools like AI causes them to reveal themselves by virtue of becoming that much louder. Those problems are often unfixable regardless, as they are at the level of personality. What is fixable in comparison (but likely not in practice) is not inventing new ways of allowing them to hang themselves and others. But we will invent them anyway, because a promising idea cannot be left alone for long, and consequences will be suffered as a result.
jongjong 18 hours ago [-]
As I was reading, I thought to myself that if Aaron's last prediction market idea doesn't work out, he would probably go insane. This story paints a clear path of 'descent into madness' in a very realistic way.
He succeeded, however, my take on the ending is that the whole world went crazy and that's why his idea ultimately proved successful.
freetime2 17 hours ago [-]
Kind of reminds me a bit of the story from Better Call Saul. Someone who has the ability and opportunity to earn an honest living, but is addicted to endorphin rush of taking risks, cheating the system, fame, etc.
I don't really know anybody like that, but there are certainly aspects of that personality that I can understand. I've never had much desire to get into bitcoin, meme stocks, prediction markets, and other forms of gambling - though at times I have felt a bit of FOMO.
Another aspect I liked about the story is that when he goes from being a failure to being a success (at least in his own mind and to his followers) - despite having the same qualities that he has had for the whole story - he goes from being a character that you pity to one that you resent.
ppnpm 12 hours ago [-]
I was about to search for the Aron's website. Brilliantly written.
sarreph 9 hours ago [-]
> I was about to search for the Aron's website.
It did cross my mind when I originally wrote this piece to make a parody website, but I forgot to and think it's a little late now... Thanks for your words!
lucastamoios 22 hours ago [-]
I use to read a lot, big novels and short stories, and I know when I see something that is good. Yours is.
One thing that I give you as feedback, maybe for another version, or for future stories, would be to develop a bit more on why keep the friendship with Aaron. I know it was there some reasons, but for me it was a bit harder to follow. But even this is a small thing.
Tell us if you have something else written to share.
sarreph 21 hours ago [-]
> develop a bit more on why keep the friendship with Aaron.
Thanks for your feedback (I got similar feedback from my friend and my partner who both write). I agree that this felt like a bit of a hole in the story as I was writing it, that I never managed to satisfactorily patch up.
> Tell us if you have something else written to share.
This is my first piece of long-form fiction, have submitted a couple of new pieces to competitions since, and aim to post those and more soon!
ilamont 21 hours ago [-]
This is like a story from "Big Vern" in Viz, but instead of Vern being a violent London heavy, it's basically Ho from Slow Horses.
Appreciate the Slow Horses reference, I can sort of see that too actually!
mikhmha 22 hours ago [-]
Great story! Loved reading it.
I also didn't see the notice it was a short story. So I was a bit puzzled when reading how Aaron built his own exchange as a novice programmer. To me building an exchange is
high up on the scale of programming difficulty. Its one of those things you have to do extremely well or else no one will trust your platform.
sarreph 21 hours ago [-]
> I also didn't see the notice it was a short story.
I'm starting to think perhaps I could have made the callout at the top a little clearer :)
Thank you for your words above also.
clort 10 hours ago [-]
maybe add it at the end also :)
I found that some of the timeline seemed out for my worldview. I'm not really sure how long the whole AI bubble has been out there, but it just seems so recent that I wasn't sure how they fitted all that in in the current timeline. Perhaps that will mature, in 5 years it won't all seem so new and perhaps more plausible.
To address the GPs point though, I do think that with LLM-assistance even now you can certainly create such sites pretty quickly with a low skill level, and that will only become easier. The big problem with creating things (in that way, or manually) is that you are the architect and artistic director, and in truth many people just don't have the ability to manage the end-result in a way that will work. We see this in websites created by developers for their own software which get posted here. Too many times there are massive assumptions that the viewer knows all about the software, which means it is almost incomprehensible to the incomer who may be interested but leaves before engaging (that is: me). I don't suppose that was a problem for Aarons bot society, but it could have affected the launch.
arjie 23 hours ago [-]
Strangely, doesn't load for me with some Vercel/NextJS error. Disabling Javascript displays the whole post, though.
sarreph 20 hours ago [-]
Notice another commenter saying similar, thanks for the data.
Chu4eeno 19 hours ago [-]
Something seems to 404:
GET https://rorz.io/_next/static/chunks/link-CKkD60iF.js 404
Loading module from “https://rorz.io/_next/static/chunks/link-CKkD60iF.js” was blocked because of a disallowed MIME type (“text/html”).
TypeError: error loading dynamically imported module: https://rorz.io/_next/static/chunks/link-CKkD60iF.js index-ConxhaY_.js:2:49967
The above error occurred in a React component:
Lazy@unknown:0:0
div@unknown:0:0
div@unknown:0:0
div@unknown:0:0
body@unknown:0:0
html@unknown:0:0
Eo@https://rorz.io/_next/static/chunks/vinext-B9_QPQZC.js:32:16818
[...]
rfool 21 hours ago [-]
Nice. Story and your writing style tell more about you as about Aaron.
IMHO, with the second paragraph, Aaron starts to fade into background. While you increasingly describe your character in-depth, but also more and more often seem to advert an urge to apologize for ... something. I wonder what that is!?
sarreph 8 hours ago [-]
> seem to advert an urge to apologize for ... something. I wonder what that is!?
I'm not sure I would have a satisfactory answer for that one, I'm afraid. Thank you nonetheless!
21 hours ago [-]
15 hours ago [-]
Kim_Bruning 21 hours ago [-]
I might have known an "aaron" or two like that.I've also known an actual "Aaron" who was famous for being extremely ethical and I initially clicked thinking it'd be a reminisce about that one.
The story is written really well. Lots of other people have said great stuff about it, so I get some room to criticize a bit too!
I just wonder about how you constructed the ending. It seemed like a different ending was coming in, and then the sudden <spoiler> out of nowhere is almost a diablo ex machina. It's just someone who comes out of nowhere, does one thing, and vanishes again, right at the end of the story, just to finish it. It's like "and then he woke up, and realized it was all a dream" ; except not quite as bad as that makes it sound. Intellectually (sherlock holmes reader style) you could see it coming, but somehow story-arc-wise not so much.
I was totally on board with the story right up to that point though, so definitely good craft.
Haha I have not heard of the Shaggy Dog trope! (Or it’s only very vaguely familiar)
I agree with you that the ending is a bit rushed, which I think can come off as forced. I’d like to blame the word count for the competition I submitted this into… :D
I’d been thinking about the idea for this story for a couple of weeks before I actually started writing it, from which I had quite a visceral idea for the ending. So I guess in some ways I could have tried to weave it in more, but I also did kind of want it to be a shocker / surprise!
triceratops 19 hours ago [-]
> then the sudden <spoiler> out of nowhere is almost a diablo ex machina
Matt Levine says that prediction markets don't just predict future events. They also create strong incentives to make them happen (or not happen).
If you already knew that then the end was, I won't say predictable (hehe) - I was a bit surprised - but also not out of left field.
neuroticnews25 9 hours ago [-]
Is this a bad thing? I think that any form of hinting that things are possibly going in this direction would make the story worse.
Aaronneyer 15 hours ago [-]
I clicked this because my name is Aaron and stayed around because it was such a captivating story all the way through to the end.
sarreph 9 hours ago [-]
Thank you, Aaron! :)
john_strinlai 24 hours ago [-]
from your first post, a couple of days ago:
>What I'm saying is: that the sum total of blog posts I have actually published (for myself, not for work) is zero.
thanks for publishing this story. it kept me hooked throughout. i hope you continue to publish more.
sarreph 24 hours ago [-]
Ah - thanks! I aim to keep it up!
mchaver 23 hours ago [-]
I initially missed the line saying it was a short story and read through most of it as personal experience until the last couple of paragraphs. That made it even more exciting, but it is still very good as a fictional story.
whiteblossom 23 hours ago [-]
For all the Aarons out there, I think it would be very interesting to hear your POV.
foota 13 hours ago [-]
Ah shoot, I War of Worlds' myself. I didn't realize this was fiction until the end.
r2ob 19 hours ago [-]
I had to stop reading to leave the office and head home. I finished reading it while having dinner! It would make an excellent Black Mirror episode.
mattoxic 17 hours ago [-]
Very enjoyable. I was waiting for Aaron to have a heart attack, same outcome, less contrived maybe.
ceroxylon 23 hours ago [-]
Very good from start to finish, it reminds me of a darker version of the real story told in the 2009 documentary We Live In Public about Josh Harris.
sarreph 20 hours ago [-]
I’ve not seen this before. Added to my watchlist!
ceroxylon 17 hours ago [-]
Ooo you are in for a treat, it is old enough that it is easy to catch for free on streaming services, it will be a very trippy watch in 2026
jamesforestwest 22 hours ago [-]
What a great story. You have a very pleasant, flowing style. I didn't even notice it until I reached the end, it really captivated me
9cb14c1ec0 18 hours ago [-]
Prediction markets are a very powerful concept (and reality). With great power comes great responsibility.
aesbetic 21 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure if this is a consequence of reading about The Truman Show but, is every comment here made by a bot?
jgilias 21 hours ago [-]
Hooked me with the first couple sentences, and I just had to keep going, as I just wanted to know what happens next.
Thanks, a good read!
Aachen 8 hours ago [-]
I scrolled through all current comments and there's literally nobody who didn't enjoy it, at least not literally (some comments 'warn' that it's fiction, implying that they don't want to read that, not that they wouldn't otherwise have enjoyed it). Am I the only one? Feeling weird, like what's wrong with me then if everyone is posting that it's not just fine but amazing, gripping, such a great writer, fantastic, relatable, etc.
I got this error too, I had to copy the story html from the page source to read it.
sarreph 20 hours ago [-]
It’s hard to tell how spontaneous this error is as I’ve only just launched this website, but will try to see if there’s a fix for it — thanks for the data!
ChrisMarshallNY 15 hours ago [-]
I enjoyed it. I have known a number of Aarons.
Thanks for sharing it, and good luck!
raver1975 19 hours ago [-]
I won $10,000 betting on whether you would publish this story on hacker news. Thanks!
royal__ 21 hours ago [-]
I legitimately thought this was real for about half of it and it made it very engaging, well done.
StilesCrisis 22 hours ago [-]
Where did Aaron get the millions of dollars' worth of tokens from? The grannies?!?
dstnn 20 hours ago [-]
I just sent this to my 16 year old. Thank you for writing and sharing this
sarreph 20 hours ago [-]
That’s awesome to hear, thank you.
iparaskev 21 hours ago [-]
I almost missed my metro stop because I couldn't stop reading.
sarreph 5 hours ago [-]
Haha even though you almost missed your stop I'm glad I made something that captivated you!
whiteblossom 1 days ago [-]
Thank you for this piece! I'll be thinking about Aaron during lunch today.
sarreph 24 hours ago [-]
Thank you for your kind words.
unglaublich 23 hours ago [-]
Hey you don't have to reply to each comment with a generic reply. It's a fine piece sure but let's not inflate this thread x2 with just "thank you for your words".
zhainya 13 hours ago [-]
Really great read! Thank you!
shimman 1 days ago [-]
Reminds me of the Black Mirror episode "Shut up and Dance."
Great story and creating the character Aaron. You did an excellent job in making a very believable person that I think most of us have run into in tech adjacent spaces.
sarreph 24 hours ago [-]
I appreciate you referencing Charlie Brooker as he is undoubtedly a subconscious influence on my writing! Thanks for your comment.
jborichevskiy 22 hours ago [-]
Great writing. Felt like it could be a Black Mirror episode
zabriel_goss 20 hours ago [-]
Gripping! Wonderful surprise to read this today
photonios 23 hours ago [-]
Exceptionally well written! I was instantly hooked.
There's a difference between intelligent and smart, the latter including being able to use your intelligence for a practical, real-life purpose, like improving your own life.
cute_boi 22 hours ago [-]
I think he is smart and intelligent but lacks wisdom.
CoastalCoder 20 hours ago [-]
I don't have my reading glasses on, so at first I read the title as "My Friend Arson".
Different kind of story I reckon.
TheJCDenton 10 hours ago [-]
Loved it!
alun 1 days ago [-]
Very fun read. Thanks for posting it!
sarreph 24 hours ago [-]
Appreciate the comment :)
sailfast 22 hours ago [-]
Black Mirror adaptation when?
23 hours ago [-]
stephenlf 1 days ago [-]
Spooky and riveting!
sarreph 1 days ago [-]
Thank you very much.
jongjong 18 hours ago [-]
I thought the story was non-fiction until I got to the point about how the bots attracted real users to Aaron's platform. That part was really stretching it.
mulhoon 21 hours ago [-]
Loved it!
nobodywillobsrv 22 hours ago [-]
Good story and the classic problem with nearly all betting markets having viaticals embedded
Mr_Eri_Atlov 23 hours ago [-]
Great story; it's amazing how many of us sympathize with or have had an Aaron in our lives.
23david 1 days ago [-]
Great short story!!
sarreph 24 hours ago [-]
Thank you!
jnaina 17 hours ago [-]
was it his mom?
9 hours ago [-]
gvne_ 16 hours ago [-]
you're not black mirror lil bro
ZeroDayDreamer 11 hours ago [-]
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htx619 1 days ago [-]
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jkjjjjjj 16 hours ago [-]
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strathmeyer 1 days ago [-]
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moralestapia 1 days ago [-]
Man this piece should win an Emmy or something, it's so original and well written. I also couldn't spot much AI in there. Props to the author.
One of his songs is called "Do androids dream of real sheep?"
What a fresh take on that classic quote! Made me spurt my kombucha, lol.
How can someone be SO talented. Thanks for sharing.
sarreph 1 days ago [-]
Such kind words…! I’m so honoured and humbled. Thank you.
P.S. - I didn’t use LLMs to write it, no! :)
cynicalsecurity 22 hours ago [-]
Before you read and waste your time:
== It's a fake story ==
shadow28 21 hours ago [-]
> waste your time
Do you not read any fiction at all? Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
fooster 22 hours ago [-]
Otherwise known as fiction.
mr-wendel 19 hours ago [-]
And yet it reads better than quite a bit of non-fiction and invokes some interesting questions. Maybe its worth asking yourself what qualities in writing can make a “fake” story engage so many peoples interest? It’s also a bit odd to call it a fake when it’s never pitched as being true.
andai 1 days ago [-]
> I thought Aaron’s credits would run out and that would be the end of it: he would finally get a job.
Upon reading these words I experienced psychic damage from the blast of concentrated ambitionlessness.
I posted it here on a punt and getting front page of HN is 10x the feeling any writing contest could give me!
Thanks to all who read and commented, and glad to hear it resonates with some of you!
[EDIT]: There've been a lot more comments since I wrote this one. I want you all to know that I've read every single comment and am ever so grateful for everyone who responded here / took the time to read the story!
I also didn't see that it said "This is a short story" at the top, so I read more than half thinking it was nonfiction. Heh.
Also see a lot of comments echoing your point about missing the fact that it was fiction... Next post might have a stronger disclaimer! (But I fear it actually worked in my favour here)
Opinion
The ending is quite abrupt, I'd consider another short scene. Perhaps one at Aaron's funeral where there's a little more exposition about the shooter, such as with a conversation with Aaron's mom, or with the wider group of friends. For example, we don't know if the bet was paid out, or if the bettor had some relationship to the shooter.
The shooting itself could have a bit more conflict and tension. Imagine if, for example, there was some kind of animosity due to a fight between Aaron and the narrator. (Instead of them drifting apart.) Then imagine that the narrator saw the bet before the race, saw someone suspicious, put two and two together, and tried to warn Aaron?
Anyway, great story!
As was the ending of the young man's life.
It works perfectly as is. Often in life there is no denouement.
I actually had to look up "Come bet on Aaron’s life with us" to make sure it wasn't real.
I also liked your WhatWeSee art exhibition, pretty interesting concept.
Breath of fresh air between all the AI """writing""".
Thanks OP, great read
PvP was a perfectly legit thing to be sweaty about ranking in. I had about 3 friends who were in some of the top rankings for their battlegroup for their classes.
You can do it, be resilient and stubborn, go against the grain and things start to work out.
The correct advice to give is "don't do it. It's really hard and you'll probably fail".
Anyone who quits after receiving that advice was never going to make it anyway.
Is this genuinely the advice you'd give to someone who's less experienced in life? No wonder society is the way it is, most people have extremely low ambitions and then don't even bother working on those.
Maybe an intermediate position is to say, "Before you attempt to beat the odds, make sure you can survive the odds beating you." Because the odds are, they will.
People deterred by someone else's words usually internally hesitated anyway.
everyone has their own status quos and goals.
I remember a few of his dumbest schemes - one, he would get gift visa cards, run the balance down to pennies, then as a restaurant server for some crappy chain, would charge a customer with a big tip, put it on the drained card, and due to some weird quirk with the way they processed tips back then, the money would hit his paycheck before the decline would happen. I pointed out it was stupid easy to get caught by the bank and his restaurant but he insisted it was genius and foolproof. Got caught in a month or two, fired, nearly got in a lot of legal trouble but somehow got out of it.
His all time dumbest 'scheme' was when a major automaker was going into bankruptcy at some point during the financial crisis, the stock was pennies. So he invested all his savings, some thousands of dollars, into buying the stocks. Even being so young and barely financially literate at that point I was aghast, tried to explain that when the bankruptcy finishes, his stock will be worth nothing. No, no, he assured me - imagine - this stock was $20 before, when it's $20 again I'll be a gazillionaire. I tried very very hard to convince him that was not correct and of course he lost everything. Shortly after he got into dealing marijuana but by that point I had determined he wasn't worth hanging out with anymore. No idea what happened to him.
It made me think of Justin.tv, which was Justin Kan streaming himself. There weren’t betting markets, but today there would be.
Twitch—what it ended up as–shows how much people crave community. Like other social media, there are many examples in chats of people with believed friendships and parasocial relationships with streamers. For smaller streams, sometimes these are real casual friendships. For larger ones, it’s the dark other side of Aaron.
Anyway, I’m glad prediction markets didn’t exist in those days. I wish they didn’t now (we don’t need more outlets for gambling, in my opinion), but this was a great story nonetheless.
I had spent my whole life dreaming of making my own overnight success on the internet, but had taught someone with no ethics how to do it instead.
This is such a great line and one I know so many people related to as soon as they read it.
You're a great writer, thank you for this today.
The airgun is a subtle touch. I am in Florida, all kinds of cowboys here, are BBs legal in the UK?
Even thinking/writing about this now, it still makes obvious sense and I'm surprised it hasn't been seriously made yet with crypto: if there's a pot of billions, contributed to by millions, the incentive becomes not just about the money, but the adoration, protection and power that would come with doing so many people a favour.
Well written. Certainly bridges the gap between fiction and a plausible and believable first person narrative.
Are you familiar with the US magazine The Sun? https://www.thesunmagazine.org/ I have read several short story submissions at The Sun; typically first person submissions which blur the lines between true first person stories, and fiction.
Try to submit your story to The Sun.
I can't tell what I felt in the ending paragraph, but I can be sure of this is the strongest outcome I felt, from an web page.
Congrats, again.
That’s cathartic for some. For me, the narrator rather resembles one of the local tech millionaires, envious of the billionaires. The story doesn’t seem to know the narrator’s dishonesty.
However, taste modulates wildly.
I am absolutely not a writer so take this with a big grain of salt. Something about narrator felt like they weren't a real character and the whole story was just Aaron's third person. Maybe because the narrator didn't seem to have any intentional effect on Aaron's trajectory? Not sure if that was meant as a way to deepen that aspect of the story, but at times it felt a little awkward.
> Something about narrator felt like they weren't a real character and the whole story was just Aaron's third person.
That wasn't my intention, but others have pointed out the passiveness of the narrator. The narrator is supposed to be a character in the story in this instance. Will bear this in mind for future first-person narratives.
Failed to fetch dynamically imported module:
https://rorz.io/_next/static/chunks/link-CKkD60iF.js
I think it was some regions in Cloudflare (in this case a European one) not having all of the static `vinext` JS files ready immediately at deploy time, and then a `404` on that region sticking around due to very aggressive cacheing.
He succeeded, however, my take on the ending is that the whole world went crazy and that's why his idea ultimately proved successful.
I don't really know anybody like that, but there are certainly aspects of that personality that I can understand. I've never had much desire to get into bitcoin, meme stocks, prediction markets, and other forms of gambling - though at times I have felt a bit of FOMO.
Another aspect I liked about the story is that when he goes from being a failure to being a success (at least in his own mind and to his followers) - despite having the same qualities that he has had for the whole story - he goes from being a character that you pity to one that you resent.
It did cross my mind when I originally wrote this piece to make a parody website, but I forgot to and think it's a little late now... Thanks for your words!
One thing that I give you as feedback, maybe for another version, or for future stories, would be to develop a bit more on why keep the friendship with Aaron. I know it was there some reasons, but for me it was a bit harder to follow. But even this is a small thing.
Tell us if you have something else written to share.
Thanks for your feedback (I got similar feedback from my friend and my partner who both write). I agree that this felt like a bit of a hole in the story as I was writing it, that I never managed to satisfactorily patch up.
> Tell us if you have something else written to share.
This is my first piece of long-form fiction, have submitted a couple of new pieces to competitions since, and aim to post those and more soon!
https://assets.londonist.com/uploads/2006/12/i875/4998_big_v...
I also didn't see the notice it was a short story. So I was a bit puzzled when reading how Aaron built his own exchange as a novice programmer. To me building an exchange is high up on the scale of programming difficulty. Its one of those things you have to do extremely well or else no one will trust your platform.
I'm starting to think perhaps I could have made the callout at the top a little clearer :)
Thank you for your words above also.
I found that some of the timeline seemed out for my worldview. I'm not really sure how long the whole AI bubble has been out there, but it just seems so recent that I wasn't sure how they fitted all that in in the current timeline. Perhaps that will mature, in 5 years it won't all seem so new and perhaps more plausible.
To address the GPs point though, I do think that with LLM-assistance even now you can certainly create such sites pretty quickly with a low skill level, and that will only become easier. The big problem with creating things (in that way, or manually) is that you are the architect and artistic director, and in truth many people just don't have the ability to manage the end-result in a way that will work. We see this in websites created by developers for their own software which get posted here. Too many times there are massive assumptions that the viewer knows all about the software, which means it is almost incomprehensible to the incomer who may be interested but leaves before engaging (that is: me). I don't suppose that was a problem for Aarons bot society, but it could have affected the launch.
IMHO, with the second paragraph, Aaron starts to fade into background. While you increasingly describe your character in-depth, but also more and more often seem to advert an urge to apologize for ... something. I wonder what that is!?
I'm not sure I would have a satisfactory answer for that one, I'm afraid. Thank you nonetheless!
The story is written really well. Lots of other people have said great stuff about it, so I get some room to criticize a bit too!
I just wonder about how you constructed the ending. It seemed like a different ending was coming in, and then the sudden <spoiler> out of nowhere is almost a diablo ex machina. It's just someone who comes out of nowhere, does one thing, and vanishes again, right at the end of the story, just to finish it. It's like "and then he woke up, and realized it was all a dream" ; except not quite as bad as that makes it sound. Intellectually (sherlock holmes reader style) you could see it coming, but somehow story-arc-wise not so much.
I was totally on board with the story right up to that point though, so definitely good craft.
(edit: was it deliberately a Shaggy Dog Story? If so the fact that there is a trope called "shoot the shaggy dog" is almost too on the nose, so I'm wondering if you had that in mind! https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShaggyDogStory https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootTheShaggyDo... )
I agree with you that the ending is a bit rushed, which I think can come off as forced. I’d like to blame the word count for the competition I submitted this into… :D
I’d been thinking about the idea for this story for a couple of weeks before I actually started writing it, from which I had quite a visceral idea for the ending. So I guess in some ways I could have tried to weave it in more, but I also did kind of want it to be a shocker / surprise!
Matt Levine says that prediction markets don't just predict future events. They also create strong incentives to make them happen (or not happen).
If you already knew that then the end was, I won't say predictable (hehe) - I was a bit surprised - but also not out of left field.
>What I'm saying is: that the sum total of blog posts I have actually published (for myself, not for work) is zero.
thanks for publishing this story. it kept me hooked throughout. i hope you continue to publish more.
Thanks, a good read!
Thanks for sharing it, and good luck!
Great story and creating the character Aaron. You did an excellent job in making a very believable person that I think most of us have run into in tech adjacent spaces.
(Ref: https://www.quotes.net/mquote/3799 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkoPq5AOCOA )
Different kind of story I reckon.
>rhythmically ejected spurts of bright red blood
Yeah man, like in music, synesthesia, I get you.
Unsurprisingly the author also makes music: https://rorz.io/music
One of his songs is called "Do androids dream of real sheep?"
What a fresh take on that classic quote! Made me spurt my kombucha, lol.
How can someone be SO talented. Thanks for sharing.
P.S. - I didn’t use LLMs to write it, no! :)
== It's a fake story ==
Do you not read any fiction at all? Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Upon reading these words I experienced psychic damage from the blast of concentrated ambitionlessness.