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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 31 May 2019
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      This is not your revolutionary war. It’s the end-of-history war among rotting dinosaur carcasses between mad max tribes. Terminus Hobbes. At best we can hope to starve the war machine of meaning by reading it as spectacle rather than consequential political struggle.

      1 reply 2 retweets 38 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 31 May 2019
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      You can’t really hide from it or ignore it. There’s too much societal energy invested in it (that’s the point of a war, to burn societal energy through futility). But by seeing it differently, you can fall out of love with the big idea of warring and look for better life loves

      4 replies 3 retweets 35 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 1 Jun 2019
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      I just used the phrase “a crowd rubbernecking at itself” If it’s also angry, that’s the culture war. Like hate-watching people...people hate-watching?https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1134924490197143552?s=20 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Replying to @MispelledToyota
      Not if you mutter it under your breath while going around some crowd rubbernecking at itself
      1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 1 Jun 2019
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      It also occurred to me that driving was the original social medium. A networked public space created by technology for impoverished interactions among reductive personas. Honk = like, communicate through cut-offs, merges, tailgating, giving the finger.

      2 replies 0 retweets 19 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 1 Jun 2019
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      The difference is, when you drive for fun, you pick pleasant, scenic, easy-driving routes. You don’t head for the snarly gridlock of honks and flip-offs for “fun”. You only do it if you have to get somewhere. The culture war is a bit like going for a “fun” drive in a traffic jam.

      2 replies 1 retweet 13 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 1 Jun 2019
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      Tldr of my GUT of the culture war: it’s an end-of-history Hobbesian conflict, 100% governed by the beef-only sheep-logic of “last men”, whose idea of fun is going for a drive in a traffic jam because car-makers and oil companies have convinced them history depends on it.

      3 replies 4 retweets 28 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 1 Jun 2019
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      The sheep-logic reference if you can’t parse that.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1134921580927115264?s=21 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      If you’re careless Twitter can turn into 100% sheep-logic headspace. “Sheeple” is a good insult because a mind consumed by other-regarding cognitions is subhuman. Use Twitter as interest graph not social. Ideas front-and-center, people in peripheral vision https://www.epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/  pic.twitter.com/08gssckIjN
      2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
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    8. Dan Hon‏ @hondanhon 1 Jun 2019
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      Replying to @vgr

      Does this imply that any next Big Idea can come only after something like an outside context problem?

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 1 Jun 2019
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      Replying to @hondanhon

      Possibly. Might be why Musk and crypto capture imagination. They inject outside interestingness into sheep-logic compute matrix.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    10. Dan Hon‏ @hondanhon 1 Jun 2019
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      Replying to @vgr

      Something entirely outside and interesting would need to come along, orthogonal to the culture war, and smother it, make it irrelevant. Unanticipated side-channel attack on sheep-logic. Probe culture war for vulnerabilities?

      1 reply 1 retweet 1 like
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 1 Jun 2019
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      Replying to @hondanhon

      With what? You need that external idea to probe *with*

      2:13 PM - 1 Jun 2019
      0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes

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