Skip to content
By using Twitter’s services you agree to our Cookies Use. We and our partners operate globally and use cookies, including for analytics, personalisation, and ads.
  • Home Home Home, current page.
  • About

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Language: English
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Bahasa Melayu
    • Català
    • Čeština
    • Dansk
    • Deutsch
    • English UK
    • Español
    • Filipino
    • Français
    • Hrvatski
    • Italiano
    • Magyar
    • Nederlands
    • Norsk
    • Polski
    • Português
    • Română
    • Slovenčina
    • Suomi
    • Svenska
    • Tiếng Việt
    • Türkçe
    • Ελληνικά
    • Български език
    • Русский
    • Српски
    • Українська мова
    • עִבְרִית
    • العربية
    • فارسی
    • मराठी
    • हिन्दी
    • বাংলা
    • ગુજરાતી
    • தமிழ்
    • ಕನ್ನಡ
    • ภาษาไทย
    • 한국어
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文
  • Have an account? Log in
    Have an account?
    · Forgot password?

    New to Twitter?
    Sign up
vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

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

Tweets

  • © 2020 Twitter
  • About
  • Help Center
  • Terms
  • Privacy policy
  • Imprint
  • Cookies
  • Ads info
Dismiss
Previous
Next

Go to a person's profile

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @

Promote this Tweet

Block

  • Tweet with a location

    You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

    Your lists

    Create a new list


    Under 100 characters, optional

    Privacy

    Copy link to Tweet

    Embed this Tweet

    Embed this Video

    Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Hmm, there was a problem reaching the server.

    By embedding Twitter content in your website or app, you are agreeing to the Twitter Developer Agreement and Developer Policy.

    Preview

    Why you're seeing this ad

    Log in to Twitter

    · Forgot password?
    Don't have an account? Sign up »

    Sign up for Twitter

    Not on Twitter? Sign up, tune into the things you care about, and get updates as they happen.

    Sign up
    Have an account? Log in »

    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

    Country Code For customers of
    United States 40404 (any)
    Canada 21212 (any)
    United Kingdom 86444 Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2
    Brazil 40404 Nextel, TIM
    Haiti 40404 Digicel, Voila
    Ireland 51210 Vodafone, O2
    India 53000 Bharti Airtel, Videocon, Reliance
    Indonesia 89887 AXIS, 3, Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata
    Italy 4880804 Wind
    3424486444 Vodafone
    » See SMS short codes for other countries

    Confirmation

     

    Welcome home!

    This timeline is where you’ll spend most of your time, getting instant updates about what matters to you.

    Tweets not working for you?

    Hover over the profile pic and click the Following button to unfollow any account.

    Say a lot with a little

    When you see a Tweet you love, tap the heart — it lets the person who wrote it know you shared the love.

    Spread the word

    The fastest way to share someone else’s Tweet with your followers is with a Retweet. Tap the icon to send it instantly.

    Join the conversation

    Add your thoughts about any Tweet with a Reply. Find a topic you’re passionate about, and jump right in.

    Learn the latest

    Get instant insight into what people are talking about now.

    Get more of what you love

    Follow more accounts to get instant updates about topics you care about.

    Find what's happening

    See the latest conversations about any topic instantly.

    Never miss a Moment

    Catch up instantly on the best stories happening as they unfold.

    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      I’m seeing an interesting parallel between my work gigs on energy transition stuff (fossil fuels + combustion tech to renewables+electricity tech) and personal life efforts to gradually move to a plant-based diet. Cc @vegan @RyanBethencourt

      2 replies 3 retweets 9 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      I’m not vegan. I’m what airlines call ovo-lacto vegetarian, gradually substituting lower-cruelty products into lifestyle. Rarely buy milk anymore. Oat/soy/almond work well enough. But still on yogurt, cheese for some uses. Free-range eggs only and starting to swap in Just Egg.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Factory farming really is like the oil industry in many ways, and going plant-based is like going renewables-based. But the trick to energy transitions is to switch all the energy *end uses* to electrified devices. What’s the equivalent in food? Plantization.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Switching from an IC engine to an electric motor is about reinventing the application around the electricity stack. This is like inventing an egg substitute. The application is egg-like culinary function (like cars are transport function).

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      Show this thread
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Developing a plant-based protein that can scramble like an egg is like developing a battery with the power-to-weight ratio and capacity characteristics needed for cars. In the latter case, Li-ion was the revolution. Here, perhaps Just Egg’s mung-bean isolate is lead-acid stage

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      I think we’ll see a Nutrition Transition starting in about 20-50 years that will eventually be as huge as the ongoing Energy Transition. More sustainable and cruelty-free stack (with smaller resource footprint) with 10x better economics and quality of life that’s equal or better.

      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Tons of nutrition transition tech in the pipeline that works better and better for plant-based functional substitution. Plus of course lab-grown meat too. And on the human side, who knows... gene editing to change our digestion system.

      10:14 AM - 7 Jan 2019
      • 1 Like
      • Kush
      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Natural meat need not vanish. It might end up in about a century or two as a minor “special experience” technology, like tourist attraction steam engines or horse riding, or in the future, IC-engine cars. Natural meat will be a “stunt” food like say ostrich eggs today.

          2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          I don’t really think of nutrition and food in a culturally essentialist way. As far as food is concerned, humans might as well be robots. We just need a supply that does the job and has a sensory UX our brain expects and enjoys. Valued cultural experiences can be ported.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          And in more extreme environments (Mars colonies, seasteads) this will be primary feasible approach: rebase the nutrition stack on the lowest complexity biology we can possibly compile it down to. Why stop at complex plants. Can go down to algae. Maybe even non-living feedstocks.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Meat-eaters today are attached to their steaks, but we vegetarians are equally attached to apples and beans and lettuce. There is no reason artificial apples and beans can’t be made that mimic the experience with increasing fidelity the way vegan burgers are mimicking meat ones.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Ultimately, the only limit is fundamental physics. It’s all atoms and joules. The soylent guys have the right idea, just 50 years too soon, and with a really poor “food UX.” I’d like reasonable simulations of apples and eggs, not nutritionally sufficient mush.

          3 replies 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          And why stop at simulations of natural foods? What’s so natural about potato chips anyway? It’s a process combining oil from one plant, tubers from another, and salt, to produce crisp discs that have no analogue in nature. Yet we love them (especially when marketed “all natural”)

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Walk down any grocery store aisle: a vast proportion of foods on sale are very far from “natural”. Even produce. Modern carrots, bananas, oranges are hundreds of generations of careful breeding away from natural ancestors. And we’re not even talking GMOs (which I’m all for).

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          But once you let go “natural” aesthetics, there is an unlimited universe of food experiences that can be crafted that have no historic roots in traditional culinary practices or “nature.” We can go as far from nature in food as we’ve gone in art from naturalism to modernism.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Sure there are dangers to “authoritarian high modernist” food tech that “legibilizes” food and culinary traditions, but that didn’t stop evolution in any other technology. You just manage the risks along the way. Can’t make vegan omelets without breaking some vegan eggs.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        11. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Accept there will be weird accidents etc. Like the famous Olean “anal leakage” episode. Notice btw how much “unnatural” weirdness we accept to look good/lose weight. Why not to avoid cruelty? Is one less suffering animal a fundamentally different goal than a hairless six-pack?

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        12. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Every tech weathers risks as it evolves. Collapsing bridges crashing planes, exploding rockets, driverless cars crashing in weird ways, experimental drugs that cause birth defects. The Nutrition Transition will have it’s share of such risks. But the goal is worthwhile.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        13. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          When it comes to the mind/consciousness, I’m a bit of a vitalist. When it comes to food, I’m not. Food is just another physics/chemistry basedy sensory modality field that just needs more engineering and software to simulate than visual fields through VR/AR.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        14. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 7 Jan 2019
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Here’s to the Nutrition Transition, a cruelty-free world, and Simulated Food Reality (SFR). We should be at Star Trek level food replicators from raw atoms and joules by 2234 if we get going now.

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
          Show this thread
        15. End of conversation

      Loading seems to be taking a while.

      Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.

        Promoted Tweet

        false

        • © 2020 Twitter
        • About
        • Help Center
        • Terms
        • Privacy policy
        • Imprint
        • Cookies
        • Ads info