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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 19 Dec 2019
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      86. Neither the 1% nor the under-the-API nouveau-poor (bottom 60%?) can invent the future that needs inventing now. It's up to the mediocre-normie middle class. It's a race between forces shrinking this class, and imaginative political actions emerging from this class.

      3 replies 9 retweets 38 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      87. LOTR is about 2 political events: Tom Bombadil being disinterested in the ring, and Gandalf v. Balrog battle which happens offstage. The rest of the plot (Mordor v. Frodo's Army) is noise and fury signifying nothing. Yes this is a metaphor.

      1 reply 0 retweets 16 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      88. All pure, radically decentralized political ideologies are bs because humans want maximally intimate belongingness so badly that they'll max out the technically possible scale of centralized organization every era. If a 7.5b hive mind were possible, 6.5b would sign up.

      2 replies 2 retweets 22 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      89. I'd be in the 1b that would refuse to sign up for said hive mind in 88. It sounds awful, but then most humans are awful and would choose that state.

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      90. Most bad politics arises out of bad literary tastes, as in enjoying stories about stereotypes. Good politics arises out of pattern matching archetypes while they still have "alpha" (predictive power) with a tasteful literary sensibility

      1 reply 3 retweets 10 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      91. Stereotypes are real, and there is always a subset of every stereotyped population that actually willingly conforms to that stereotype, performing it with an aggressive deadness. These dead player zombies are the core of all politics. All politics is about seeing dead people.

      1 reply 2 retweets 31 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      92. All Straussians are wrong about almost everything just by virtue of being Straussian and being unable to come to terms with the central (heh!) role of mediocrity in the human condition. Their Noble Lies are mainly to themselves.

      1 reply 2 retweets 11 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      93. Zizek is correct. The Normie ideology is cynicism, and conversely, all ideology turns into cynicism by the time it goes normie. This is why Noble Lie political philosophy is bs because there is no unawakened consciousness laboring under from it. http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/cynzizek.html …

      1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      94. Gandalf was from Ravenclaw

      2 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
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    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      95. Opinion stolen from someone I've forgotten who: SE Asia has the potential to be the political laboratory of the future due to its diversity and topography (archipelago). One ideology tested per island, each with a Big Tech sponsor?

      1 reply 1 retweet 18 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Sean Aubin

      96. Bwahahaha rabbitocracy ftw https://twitter.com/voyageur_techno/status/1207843830403338241?s=21 …https://twitter.com/voyageur_techno/status/1207843830403338241 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Sean Aubin @voyageur_techno
      24. Joe Edelman told me that the people without any "takes" (regardless of temperature) should be the ones leading/controlling a discussion. He calls this Turtleocracy https://www.notion.so/Turtleocracy-47a6df7692bf4e95a39504a73a50a295 … I want to try this at least once in the next year.
      Show this thread
      6:59 PM - 19 Dec 2019
      • 2 Likes
      • Chris Reid tvmp
      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          Gonna slow-walk these last 4 to the finish line and try to be first-in-last-out. For 97, let’s rerun an oldie https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1073751685212692480?s=21 …https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1073751685212692480 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          You have no obligation to be useful or interesting to the world.
          3 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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          98. The right to freedom of information aka internet access is the most basic human right now, and states can only be trusted to the extent the protect it. This is the new Zeroth Law of Governmentics and sadly India has joined the ranks of countries currently breaking it 😢

          2 replies 8 retweets 32 likes
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 19 Dec 2019
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          99. I expect the Westphalian nation state default to start crumbling within my lifetime (ie next ~50y) and the only questions are a) how messily/violently and b) where can I hide out and tweet about it

          4 replies 8 retweets 43 likes
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        5. End of conversation

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