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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 2 Aug 2019
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Science Banana

      Been mulling this ever since banana tweeted it. There's something here that goes beyond mere strategic incompetence (executives choosing not to know how to use the coffee machine) and strategic ignorance (Sherlock Holmes choosing not to know the earth goes around sun)https://twitter.com/literalbanana/status/1008714338574585856 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Science Banana @literalbanana
      Refusing to know about things is a valid form of civil disobedience
      Show this thread
      1 reply 4 retweets 16 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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      The thing is, ignorance about things to which the notion of civil disobedience even applies is far harder to achieve. You must remain ignorant not just of facts ("who is Trump") but general environmental sentiment ("why are people angry all the time lately?")

      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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      The ONLY way to achieve that is to leave the environment that has a charged sentimental context around the facts you refuse to know. It's easy to not-know astronomy (just don't go to the planetarium or watch discovery channel) and avoid looking up on clear nights.

      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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      It is much harder to not-know things that are clearly affecting minds around you and reshaping social realities. You'd have to either become hypernormallly oblivious, or make up alternative explanations ("oh, daemonic forces are abroad because saturn is in the house of pisces")

      3 replies 0 retweets 7 likes
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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      To the extent strategic incompetence also plays a role in your posture, you're also going to have trouble with unskilled and/or necessary activities, like more stringent airport security, documentation requirements, etc. This is Geselleschaft equivalent of Gemeinschaft sentiment

      11:23 AM - 2 Aug 2019
      • 4 Likes
      • unholy smokes Olaf Ajit Verghese
      1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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          (threat level ratings, alarms going off, more police around, more paperwork, etc etc).

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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          But it is possible. It is possible to retreat in ways that achieve this kind of "civil disobedience". You just have to do an extreme escaping-reality type retreat, moving in physical and lifestyle space to where the sentiment cannot creep.

          2 replies 1 retweet 3 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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          The degenerate form of this is what I'e been derisively calling waldenponding. A very personal and rather selfish pattern of retreat (if you're otherwise mentally healthy) that has none of the redeeming features of effective civil disobedience.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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          What banana is talking about is a broader kind of disengagement that is focused and tactical. You don't retreat from all societal engagement. You retreat along specific information dimensions to deny specific zeitgeist demons the attention energy they feed on.

          4 replies 0 retweets 14 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Dan Hon

          Yep. The norms being disobeyed in this sort of retreat are specific "informed citizenry" norms of democracy. It's not a generic self-care retreat. Which is why I think she hit on a very valuable nuance here.https://twitter.com/hondanhon/status/1157357618723037184 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Dan Hon @hondanhon
          Replying to @hondanhon @vgr
          The retreat/environment context is crucial for this kind of civil disobedience, because the nature of the disobediance flows completely from the attributes of the "civil" norms and behaviors.
          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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          If all the political establishment does for their end of the bargain of *keeping* citizens informed is create FUD and push viral-bullshit buttons of all sorts, they broke the contract first :D

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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          In fact, "informed citizenry" is better understood as "staying informed where they want to keep you in the dark" (in the spirit of "journalism is printing what somebody doesn't want printed, everything else is PR")

          2 replies 0 retweets 11 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 2 Aug 2019
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          Of course, this also inevitably creates justification for conspiracy thinking. "What they don't want you to know" is an invitation to wild speculation. Duty to stay informed != aptitude for processing it in reasonably intelligent ways.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        10. End of conversation

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