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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

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Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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      < but when ppl get into positions of actual policy influence on the idea that they've got insight that can be put to work on an urgent problem and their credential is they've figured out that wheels need to be round, I worry that solutions are, uh, probably not forthcoming

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    2. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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      concrete example: "gee, look, the data shows suicide bombers are as likely to be from middle or even upper middle class as from the very poor" no shit, sherlock. why does this surprise you? "well we thought were motivated by 'poverty'." well, whatever gave you that silly idea?

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    3. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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      so western policies of inoculating radicalizable MENA populations against right-wing radicalization by buying them off with liberal "prosperity" didn't work -- i.e. didn't prevent any of the needless death and suffering the radicalized went on to inflict *anyway*

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    4. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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      which was frustrating bc if you'd read Hobbes it was already obvious that people just don't embrace Friedmanesque security-and-prosperity regimes until they're deliberately and, frankly, *taught* to, paternalistically and coercively -- Europeans didn't either!

      3 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 3 Jul 2018
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      The problem is that poli. sci. mostly offers such analytical insights in hindsight. To spot these things with foresight, situational observation helps more than reading ancient texts. You don't need Plato or Hobbes if you actually paid attention to who is attending Jihadi meetups

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    6. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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      crepuscular dispatch Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      heh, yeah, I was about to say that tbf you did nail it here & did so unaided by plato or hobbes, so no doubt it can be donehttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1012219535007494144?s=19 …

      crepuscular dispatch added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      It is better to stick to argument that far left anger has meaningfully actionable social redressals. Far right anger can only be fed by false mythologies that delay the encounter with the self-actualization imperative. It’s not a hunger that is satiated by feeding it.
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    7. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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      alas getting close enough (philosophically, politically, geographically, demographically, culturally, any or all of the above) to a jihadi meetup to have any opportunity to notice who's attending them isn't strictly required for a job making western policy either, which is stupid

      2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 3 Jul 2018
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      It's the job of intelligence though, prepping reports that the policy people should be reading. They certainly know. At least the major western intelligence agencies do. I can understand the policy people of some minor country making the mistake because they lack the apparatus.

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    9. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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      heh, oddly enough I was kind of being nudged toward military intelligence as a career out of hs (had one of those supposedly 100% objective computer-aided high-school career aptitudes tests *and* a foaf with 12 years as an army intelligence linguist actively endorsing it) so

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    10. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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      you'd think intel wouldn't have the same institutional-culture problem but the big complaint of ppl in it at the time was that it did anyway - the personality type that's going to be good at humint is going to be a bad "culture fit" for military-in-general almost by definition

      2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 3 Jul 2018
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      well it's mostly shifted to cheaper elint in last 20y, which unfortunately loses a lot of the cultural context of the information being analyzed

      7:14 PM - 3 Jul 2018
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        1. New conversation
        2. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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          tech can ensure the projectile hits exactly who it's aimed at and only them but culture-sensitive humint is the only way to get any confidence that it's aimed at who it *should* be aiming at and not a bystander with friends and family no amount of "sorry" will bring them back to

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. crepuscular dispatch‏ @schakalsynthetc 3 Jul 2018
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          current us mil is expensive in terms of investment in tech but in terms of human, intellectual and cultural capital investment the rule is "do it on the cheap" & you don't have to be any kind of leftist or anti-imperialist to be angry at how much needless suffering it's paid with

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