Skip to content
By using Twitter’s services you agree to our Cookies Use. We and our partners operate globally and use cookies, including for analytics, personalisation, and ads.
  • Home Home Home, current page.
  • About

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Language: English
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Bahasa Melayu
    • Català
    • Čeština
    • Dansk
    • Deutsch
    • English UK
    • Español
    • Filipino
    • Français
    • Hrvatski
    • Italiano
    • Magyar
    • Nederlands
    • Norsk
    • Polski
    • Português
    • Română
    • Slovenčina
    • Suomi
    • Svenska
    • Tiếng Việt
    • Türkçe
    • Ελληνικά
    • Български език
    • Русский
    • Српски
    • Українська мова
    • עִבְרִית
    • العربية
    • فارسی
    • मराठी
    • हिन्दी
    • বাংলা
    • ગુજરાતી
    • தமிழ்
    • ಕನ್ನಡ
    • ภาษาไทย
    • 한국어
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文
  • Have an account? Log in
    Have an account?
    · Forgot password?

    New to Twitter?
    Sign up
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

Tweets

  • © 2020 Twitter
  • About
  • Help Center
  • Terms
  • Privacy policy
  • Imprint
  • Cookies
  • Ads info
Dismiss
Previous
Next

Go to a person's profile

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @

Promote this Tweet

Block

  • Tweet with a location

    You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

    Your lists

    Create a new list


    Under 100 characters, optional

    Privacy

    Copy link to Tweet

    Embed this Tweet

    Embed this Video

    Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Hmm, there was a problem reaching the server.

    By embedding Twitter content in your website or app, you are agreeing to the Twitter Developer Agreement and Developer Policy.

    Preview

    Why you're seeing this ad

    Log in to Twitter

    · Forgot password?
    Don't have an account? Sign up »

    Sign up for Twitter

    Not on Twitter? Sign up, tune into the things you care about, and get updates as they happen.

    Sign up
    Have an account? Log in »

    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

    Country Code For customers of
    United States 40404 (any)
    Canada 21212 (any)
    United Kingdom 86444 Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2
    Brazil 40404 Nextel, TIM
    Haiti 40404 Digicel, Voila
    Ireland 51210 Vodafone, O2
    India 53000 Bharti Airtel, Videocon, Reliance
    Indonesia 89887 AXIS, 3, Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata
    Italy 4880804 Wind
    3424486444 Vodafone
    » See SMS short codes for other countries

    Confirmation

     

    Welcome home!

    This timeline is where you’ll spend most of your time, getting instant updates about what matters to you.

    Tweets not working for you?

    Hover over the profile pic and click the Following button to unfollow any account.

    Say a lot with a little

    When you see a Tweet you love, tap the heart — it lets the person who wrote it know you shared the love.

    Spread the word

    The fastest way to share someone else’s Tweet with your followers is with a Retweet. Tap the icon to send it instantly.

    Join the conversation

    Add your thoughts about any Tweet with a Reply. Find a topic you’re passionate about, and jump right in.

    Learn the latest

    Get instant insight into what people are talking about now.

    Get more of what you love

    Follow more accounts to get instant updates about topics you care about.

    Find what's happening

    See the latest conversations about any topic instantly.

    Never miss a Moment

    Catch up instantly on the best stories happening as they unfold.

    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      "Spend time" is metaphorically coherent, but "make time" is used in an incomplete way. We use the phrase to mean zero-sum reallocation of time across activities, or via outsourcing, using $ to reallocate it across people. But there's a sense in which time is created like wealth.

      3 replies 4 retweets 17 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      In a way, the future doesn't exist until you literally create it, via desires/intentions/aversions/debts that create a visceral current sense of it. This is not figurative. You can literally stop "making" time in this wealth-creation sense by killing yourself.

      2 replies 1 retweet 8 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Subjective time seems ephemeral and insubstantial compared to objective time in most discussions. To say that time has sped up or slowed down for me seems more like poetry than fact. Out-there clock-time feels like the "real time". Except in one kind of discussion: of death.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      There is a very non-poetic sense in which time only exists in the form of the subjective experience of sentient beings. A thread of this experience ends in a hard-edged way with death.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      You don't notice philosophical implications if you're talking about 1 death in a universe with 1 zillion sentient beings/points of view/experiences of time. But what if all sentient beings died. In what sense would time continue to pass if nobody experiences it passing?

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      This is the "universal death" argument for the reality of subjective time and ephemerality of objective time. I don't know if there's an academic philosophy version of it, but that's what I call it. Universe going from in-parts sentient to a p-zombie universe.

      2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      Show this thread
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      The classic Nagle "what is it like to be a bat" question is actually not very different from "what is it like to be the universe". I adopt the hard position, which requires a label, that time only exists if there is something it is like for a universe to be a universe.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Schism

      Yep. Healthy people don't realize that they're literally producing time-wealth by choosing to live. Suicidal people get it, because the possibility of stopping producing time is actually a live one for them.https://twitter.com/raskolnehkov/status/1228435273081475072 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Schism @raskolnehkov
      Replying to @vgr
      So you're saying people don't know how correct they really are when they use the phrase?
      1:54 PM - 14 Feb 2020
      • 2 Likes
      • 🌴🌲 yu 🌲🌴 Eric Richards
      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Toy example. Imagine a universe with just 1 sentient being. His time experience is 100% of subjective time experience that exists. He kills himself, subjective time goes away.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Forget about physics complexities or whether sentience is required for quantum wibbly-wobbly to decohere etc. Assume it's a classical dualist newtonian universe where the subjective is ontologically independent and not the result of some sort of speculative entanglement crap.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          In this universe, the one living being, call him Dent, experiences the future on two levels: a) as an abstract model of "empty" experience flow coming at him that he will fill up with "living" b) visceral sense of time passing

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The argument is that b can actually collapse entirely if you stress information flows, agency, etc. enough. And with b collapsed, a will seem as unreal as angels dancing on a pinhead.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          So even if he does not die, in this universe, subjective time can almost cease to exist if Dent is under sufficiently severe material stress. Time will be close to an abstraction like God for him.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          This has been your irregular random update and outtake from my ongoing thinking about temporality. Please refer all your questions to your friendly neighborhood clock.

          2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          One highly loaded/charged definition of time I've been playing with is: time is change in the NPV of all the pain and pleasure expected by sentient beings.

          2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          @threadreaderapp unroll

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

      Loading seems to be taking a while.

      Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.

        Promoted Tweet

        false

        • © 2020 Twitter
        • About
        • Help Center
        • Terms
        • Privacy policy
        • Imprint
        • Cookies
        • Ads info