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

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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 31 Oct 2019
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      I think the national-empire phase was worse. It had the same level of exploitation but an added layer of hypocritical idealism. The difference between the Imperial Raj and Company Raj in India was that the the company era people didn’t pretend (as much) to be noble idealists.

      2 replies 1 retweet 12 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 31 Oct 2019
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      We’re engineering imperial colonial era in the Internet age now. The Corportation Raj era is drawing to a close. Four political powers: Russia, China, EU and US are taking different approaches to building new empires based on NOT renegotiating consent-of-governed.

      1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 31 Oct 2019
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      Russia and China are like Spain and Portugal. Naked aggression in building a cyber-empire without even a Papal Bull dividing up the world by longitude. They’ll probably fail in the same way. Gangsters never learn to govern.

      2 replies 2 retweets 8 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 31 Oct 2019
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      The EU is approaching it like the continental colonialists. To understand the future as mapped out by GDPR, look to the colonial models of Netherlands, France, Belgium etc. The US is taking a British approach. High-minded commerce-inspired incompetence. Gunboat diplomacy.

      1 reply 3 retweets 10 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 31 Oct 2019
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      A new Great Game is afoot, with the Internet playing the role of Afghanistan. The companies are going to decline. Political power is going to replace it.

      4 replies 2 retweets 11 likes
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    6. Nathaniel Eliot‏ @temujin9 31 Oct 2019
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      Replying to @vgr

      Specifically, the role of the death of empires?

      3 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 31 Oct 2019
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      Replying to @temujin9

      Afghanistan is considered the graveyard of empires from before colonialism though. The Persians and Chinese and Ottomans failed there too. I think that reputation dates to Alexandrian times. I suspect the Internet is not quite so ungovernable.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    8. Nathaniel Eliot‏ @temujin9 31 Oct 2019
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      Replying to @vgr

      Are you sure? I can think of at least three major patterns underlying it -- tech debt, encryption, & communication immediacy -- which makes it the equivalent of mountainous terrain inhabited by an unexpectedly well-armed tribal resistance.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    9. Nathaniel Eliot‏ @temujin9 31 Oct 2019
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      Replying to @temujin9 @vgr

      Also, your hypothetical government which subdued the internet would have to be quite good at technology. That would definitely not be the US government, as it stands. China's probably has the best shot at it. I doubt it's good enough, either, but I've not made an honest assay.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    10. Nathaniel Eliot‏ @temujin9 31 Oct 2019
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      Replying to @temujin9 @vgr

      And meanwhile the gap between existing realms of governance and the edge of the digital frontier widens. One of the causes of your Great Weirding is that the bubble of "our world is largely governed" is popping / has popped. Our world is largely ungoverned, at the moment.

      2 replies 2 retweets 5 likes
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 31 Oct 2019
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      Replying to @temujin9

      Digitally, we’re already in mad max world. Edgelords are post-apocalyptic warlords.

      6:38 PM - 31 Oct 2019
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