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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 Feb 13
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      This is really surreal. A shit ton is going wrong in all parts of the world, on all sorts of fronts (climate, finance, war, tech). But the only people being morally held to account for any of it is those subscribing to woke ideologies.

      1 reply 0 retweets 18 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      An alien would be justified in concluding that homo sapiens is really 2 species. Morally culpable homo sapiens wokus, and morally non-culpable homo sapiens tradus.

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      As a thought experiment, what if actual condition is the reverse: everybody *except* the wokies has moral culpability. They've had their brains rotted by some sort of vague intersectional mind virus written in COBOL. Ignore and isolate them. This actually rings more true to me

      1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      On the one side, I hear sophomore wokies spouting robotic gobbledygook I can barely parse, and am not sure they can either. On the other, I hear crystal clear messages of overt cruelty, hostility, vengefulness etc. Which of the 2 is more responsible for their thoughts/words?

      1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      Not going anywhere in particular with this line of thought. I don't think blame and judgment subplots of narrativizing history are either futile or the whole story. Holding people morally accountable for things that are happening is one part of how humans process what to do next.

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      To the extent that the blame/judgment subplot has gotten itself into a weird narrative bind where only a tiny subset are subject to it, the narrative mechanism has broken, and either needs to be fixed, or other parts of the mechanism need to pick up the slack.

      1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      I think I know why we're in this condition. The thing is, ideologies only accept accountability for loci of agency they see as legitimate, so everything that happens at other loci is the fault of people who see agency there as legitimate.

      1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      ie if your philosophy only recognizes the legitimacy of individual agency in personal life, then collective failures are obviously the fault of collectivists.

      1 reply 2 retweets 8 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      Usually, this wonderful leap of logic involves attributing god-like correct functioning and infallibility to an emergent mechanism at the higher levels which would work great if only humans would cede all agency to the Higher Power at that level. Markets, gods, take your pick.

      1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
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    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      I'm blameless and doing everything right wherever I'm responsible for my actions. There exists a higher power that *would* do everything right if only we'd let it. Some evil people don't let it. They're to blame for everything wrong at other levels.

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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      Thinking about how to get past this condition. I have no good ideas at present, but I'm thinking a first design commitment is to take agency abdicators at their word. If they want animal levels of non-culpability, even if it sounds insulting to me, let them claim it. Move on.

      4:50 PM - 13 Feb 2020
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      • rudy cloudman Brett Williams Space Pirate The Legendary Dragon Alephwyr, named Alephwyr, BA Dean Cooney - reBuild
      2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
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        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          The implication is that I wouldn't attempt to argue with them anymore than I would attempt to argue with my cat. My cat does his cat-tricks to try to manipulate me, I do my human-tricks to prevail. Hard to say this in non-pejorative way... but I'm very nice to animals.

          3 replies 0 retweets 7 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          Pseudospeciation is an ugly tribalist move to dehumanize the outgroup. But what do you do when individuals and groups start doing it to themselves to reap the benefits of animal non-culpability? Call it auto-pseudospeciation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudospeciation …

          1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          Not sure what the reasonable test for acting human is. I think it means owning your actions and all consequences, right up to boundary of where others freedom of action begins. Nobody "makes" anybody else do anything past age 5. But if you insist I made you do something, so be it

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          I'm trying to reduce this thread to a single paradox contradiction. I think it's something like: what do you do when you want to attribute more moral agency to someone than they'll acknowledge having themselves?

          1 reply 2 retweets 13 likes
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        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          I'm reminded of the oddest conversation about vegetarianism I've had, with an Egyptian. Most meat eaters accept moral agency/culpability that might be involved in choosing to eat meat. But this guy's response was "but the Koran tells us to eat everything!" Cracked me up.

          2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
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        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          I'm vegetarian leaning vegan where/when I can, but not evangelical about it, and don't try to convert others. Meat eaters who raise the topic with me accept their agency in choosing to eat meat 99% of the time. Denying such agency via appeal to religious duty is...odd

          1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
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        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          People who accept their moral agency are generally capable of surprising you. Sufficient, but not necessary condition. This includes you being able to surprise yourself. If you cannot surprise yourself you have an animal sense of yourself. Why is surprisability key here?

          1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes
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        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          The Internet of Beefs, IoB, is people who can’t be surprised either by themselves or by others. Tell: if you can mock somebody you’re predicting them. If you’re still mad at them it’s because they’re not accepting culpability where you want them to.

          2 replies 1 retweet 6 likes
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        10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          This means even where you and I agree that something has gone wrong rather than as designed by somebody, nobody is accepting responsibility. It’s a “who owns this externality” argument.

          1 reply 1 retweet 3 likes
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        11. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          If the only consequences of your actions that you own are predictable ones, and all externalities are attributable to other people’s (predictable and mockable) misguided actions, are you really acknowledging any agency at all?

          1 reply 1 retweet 5 likes
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        12. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          Real agency results in 2 kinds of surprise 1. Unexpected material consequences 2. Unexpected responses from others with agency You’re not accepting your own humanity and attendant material and moral agency if you don’t act in ways that generate BOTH kinds of surprise.

          1 reply 2 retweets 7 likes
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        13. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          If no unintended consequences are ever the result of what you chose to do, you are viewing your agency like an animal’s. If people never respond to you in surprising ways it means something a bit more complex.

          1 reply 1 retweet 4 likes
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        14. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 13
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          It is some combination of: a) you’re only pushing their animal buttons b) they’re like you, and only have animal buttons c) you’ve blinded yourself to their surprising responses IoB is b vs b.

          0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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        15. End of conversation

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