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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 Mar 2
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      Update he hit the goal at age 50 🤨

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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      Campbell fumbles Herbert and Dune, it’s ~1969. Looks like he’s down for the count now. Too old to change, left behind. Also, an Ayn Rand fan, so minus 10 points there.

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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      And now he’s turned into a rather sophomoric basic racist uncle at thanksgiving type with little left in him except residual prejudices. Sad how many interesting people from that era ended up there in the 60s.

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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      And now we have Asimov the harasser trying to persuade Campbell the racist, by now a full blown reactionary, that he is on the wrong side on civil rights, race etc. Kinda funny. Both would be born canceled today 😂 Alright to bed. To be continued.

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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      Okay the book sprints through the rest of their lives. They’re all dead within the next couple of chapters. Campbell dies in 1971, watching Mexican wrestling on TV. Hubbard, 1986, stroke Heinlein dies, 1988, at 80, old age Asimov 1992, transfusion-HIV

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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      The last few chapters are unexpectedly poignant, and the last third of the book the strongest. Does a great job threading the needle between showcasing their contributions and honestly portraying their flaws, and not flinching from judging them

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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      What struck me the most is the extreme degree to which severe physical and mental health issues shaped their lives and work, and the extent to which their flaws and failures seem like natural products of those struggles.

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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      There’s a whole “everybody’s fighting a hidden battle” aspect to their stories. Only Hubbard comes across as irredeemable, turning into a true psycho sadist by the end. The other 3 are redeemable I think. Their reputations/legacies can be rehabilitated/salvaged, and deserve to be

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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      But damn the blast radius of personal tragedy around their personal lives is non-trivial. Asimov’s estranged son ended up getting convicted of child pornography. Hubbard’s son committed suicide.

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    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      Final rankings: One Asimov survives the tale with a life worth emulating, modulo some editing of flaws. He’s the only one on the list. Campbell is a cautionary tale, grew himself into a cul de sac. Heinlein ended up pwned by his ideological leanings Hubbard beyond the pale.

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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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      So... Competent Man viewed through the lives of these 4 eigenauthors of the archetype? Campbell and Heinlein believed most fervently in the silly unreconstructed ideal, but in different ways. Hubbard rejected it in his fiction but aspired to it in his life and failed badly.

      7:40 PM - 2 Mar 2020
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        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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          Asimov is the interesting one. He inherited and faithfully executed on the archetype but didn’t believe in it or aspire to it, proclaiming his own unworthiness etc in the beginning. Yet by the end he found he’d come closest to achieving a version of it with psyche intact.

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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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          Heinlein and Campbell present diffferent patterns of arrested development. Hubbard a degeneration into unrestrained deviancy. All 3 aspired to being Competent Men in life. None deserves the title Competent Man. All 3 realized it and it soured their last years, making them bitter.

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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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          They died with relationships to individuals, society and posterity in a troubled, unresolved state of failed self-actualization. Asimov though, kinda conquered life and seems to have died genuinely happy, having managed to grow old along with himself. Competent man.

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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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          A nice thought experiment: what combination of these 4, who bridged the worlds of campy Flash Gordon and complex Rick Deckard, would make the best Frankenstein Competent Man? What traits would you pick from each, what would you leave out?

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        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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          Campbell: keep the confident authoritah, imagination and OG contrarianism, leave out the utter sloppiness when it came to rigorous thinking, the insecurity in relation to science. Heinlein: Keep the political and artistic courage, leave out the intolerant conviction in himself

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        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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          Hubbard: keep the sociopath realism and spiritual daring, leave out the cartoon levels of 7 deadly sins and more Asimov: keep the energy, IQ, humility, loyalty, and general integrity. Leave out the odd conservatism, misogyny, and deep self-absorption/neglectful ness of relations

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        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Mar 2
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          For those interested, the Golden Age was followed by New Wave. Kinda like DC —> Marvel in comics. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_science_fiction …

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        9. End of conversation

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