alt Hacker News> But either way, people's minds do not wither in this story, it explicitly works out fine for them?
Huh?
"when the corpses of the wearers were being prepared for burial, it was noted that their brains were curiously deformed: the neocortexes had wasted away, and the bulk of their mass was an abnormally hypertrophied mid- and lower-brain, especially the parts associated with reflexive action"
You could infer their minds fading away even without that paragraph, but it's very explicit.
Also you have another comment where you insist nobody has explained what the story is arguing when multiple people told you what the story is arguing, what the heck.
OK, so there is a magical device that provides you with deep contentment no matter what. But then, when you die and they cut your head open, the physical, biological brain has shrunk. And that's bad. Is that right? Is this what it's about?
Is the story actually arguing something? I have just been literally asking what it even presumes itself to be about. Is it the gloss above?
If it's about agency, I don't get it. It seems silly/facile to assert the "right" decision is the thing that matters without making the thing so magic it doesn't even make sense. Does agency stop you from getting hit by a runaway bus? Help you from being persecuted for arbitrary reasons? The story tells us they all, unfailingly, live "abnormally successful" lives. That's all supposed to be because of their (non) agency because of the earring device?