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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

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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      I-it vs I-you is the most basic dichotomy I’ve found in my years of dichotomy hunting to fuel 2x2s. HT @mtraven for introducing me to it.pic.twitter.com/e5eVehbSvJ

      3 replies 6 retweets 30 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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      Magic and illusion often seem to depend on hacking it/you processing dispositions

      2 replies 1 retweet 5 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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      Material reality has a lot of detail but very little meaning Social reality has a lot of meaning but very little detail Humans want significance: both detail and meaning at once, to feel present and alive. This can be hacked for profit or insight.

      2 replies 4 retweets 18 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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      Significance is meaningful detail. Example: “sell the sizzle, not the steak” creates significance out of a material detail (sizzle as I-it) and social meaning (sizzle as socially constructed meaningfulness of food culture eg barbecue)

      2 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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      A tell of an inexperienced liar is putting in too much or too little material detail relative to the meaning of what is being said. A significance glitch.

      2 replies 1 retweet 11 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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      Magic tricks often work because we badly *want* to believe that objects have intentions minds and mysterious agency (meaningful I-you characteristics we want in humans to relate to) but the trick often exploits basic banal I-it physics/geometry that’s a letdown when revealed

      1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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      I think “magicians never tell” because they are far more afraid of loss of faith in meaningfulness than in their tricks getting shared. I’ve never once not been disappointed at learning how a trick works.

      4 replies 1 retweet 13 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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      Experimental science is the opposite of magic. Bizarre I-it details with no social narrative attached. Like a mentos and soda experiment. Bizarre and fun but not like a magic trick because there are no significant expectations being subverted.

      10:01 PM - 30 Jun 2019
      • 7 Likes
      • фффффффффф Josh Mize Olaf Golf on the moon stupid twitt account Dorian Taylor The Legendary Dragon Alephwyr, named Alephwyr, BA
      1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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          Our null hypothesis for I-it things is ”nothing much” Our null hypothesis for I-you things is “change caused by living striving” Objects doing something rather than nothing is surprising in a science way People doing nothing rather than something is surprising in a magic way

          1 reply 1 retweet 5 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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          Example of latter: a mark picking the card the conjurer wants, due to highly effective suggestion modes... that’s humans acting deterministically like objects

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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          Try this dumb “magic” trick. Spell out a number of words ending in o-p while a friend pronounces them: c o p cop t o p top m o p mop After 6-7 such prompts, suddenly ask them: “what do you do at a green traffic light?” ~100% of people will say “stop”

          1 reply 2 retweets 5 likes
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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 30 Jun 2019
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          Conditioning structure here is transparent but most tricks with more hidden mechanics seem to rely on similar object-like predictability of human attention trajectory. You work it like an I-it to get an I-thou payoff yourself (people being impressed at a cheap trick)

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
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        6. End of conversation

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