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

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 23 Apr 2019
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      There's a sentiment in several Agatha Christie books (usually in the form of warnings to communist/socialist characters) about avoiding the temptation to think of the weight of the world's problems resting on you personally.

      2 replies 20 retweets 85 likes
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 23 Apr 2019
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      I used to think of that as a conservative sentiment, but now I see it in people of all types. They just differ in the X in "X will save the world" (wokeism, markets, a return to tradition, racial purity). It's participating in totalizing "final solution" thinking

      10:51 PM - 23 Apr 2019
      • 4 Retweets
      • 28 Likes
      • krish Rhys Cassidy foxgrrl stupid twitt account portalnyc Darren Roth james (they/them) Coolerator
      1 reply 4 retweets 28 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 23 Apr 2019
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          I now interpret the warning more broadly as a) Resist the messiah complex. If you think the whole problem is yours to solve, you are part of the problem. b) Resist collectivized messianism. If you are part of a "crowdsourced" messiah that thinks it has a solution that's worse

          2 replies 16 retweets 61 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 23 Apr 2019
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          Not only will you personally not solve the "whole problem". Even your idea of the best collective will not. In fact, everybody alive today, taken together, tribal warring and all, will only make a small dent on a small piece of the problem, which is not even a coherent whole.

          2 replies 0 retweets 23 likes
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 23 Apr 2019
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          The idea of "saving the world" goes toxically, epically wrong on the very first step. It is the very act of defining everything "broken" in the world as part of one connected big problem instead of a zillion little ones, is what creates the biggest problems.

          3 replies 9 retweets 48 likes
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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 23 Apr 2019
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          Find a nice bunch of people tackling a nice little piece, and then take your little piece of that little piece. Everybody alive does that too. A cohort of humanity collectively adds maybe a dozen little pieces to the problem of making the world marginally better every generation

          1 reply 9 retweets 33 likes
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        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 23 Apr 2019
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          Even the most vaulting ambition of a single human, if grounded in legitimate capacity for doing huge things, is never "save the world" scale (and I reiterate here, that stated that way it's not just an ill-posed problem, it is a big-problem-creating posing).

          2 replies 2 retweets 17 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 23 Apr 2019
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          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          Rather appropriately, this train of thought itself randomly fragmented into 3 disjoint pieces. Glueing piece #2 here, on hyperpluralismhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1120932160259510272 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          Pluralism is no longer strong enough to counter ideologism. We need hyperpluralism. If pluralism is a "live and let live" stance that acknowledges the right of all ideologies to exist, hyperpluralism requires all ideologies to be open-sourced and allowed to mix and match freely.
          Show this thread
          1 reply 2 retweets 10 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 23 Apr 2019
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          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          Piece #3 is my 3 stooges theory of what's happeninghttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1120939062188097539 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          A three stooges type slapstick theory of the Great Weirding 1. Natural creative destruction slapped conservatives making them mad 2. Mad conservatives turned around and slapped liberals making *them* mad 3. Mad liberals now trying to turn around and slap techies/bankers
          2 replies 2 retweets 8 likes
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        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 24 Apr 2019
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          The world is not yours to save. You have an obligation to NOT try to save it.

          4 replies 6 retweets 25 likes
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        10. End of conversation

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