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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 Jun 10
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      All those glorious space images you see? False color from other parts of the spectrum. Assertions that mantis shrimps see way more colors? Fragile deductions from eye-optics circuitry that is now in doubt.

      2 replies 2 retweets 37 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 10
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      Some of this has belatedly leaked through into humanities and social sciences (see for example the "inverted spectrum" argument in philosophy of mind... which required Newton's prism experiments to even construct... or Searle's Chinese room, which requires computers to imagine)

      1 reply 0 retweets 24 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 10
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      I bought my first telescope in 8th grade, in 1988, spent years glued to it. Now I own 2 binoculars (haven't lived in good skywatching areas in decades). Every time you use an instrument to connect to reality differently, you become a better human, with a smaller identity.

      2 replies 4 retweets 57 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 10
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      But paradoxically, the more your identity shrinks as a result of this process, the greater your confidence in what's left. It will likely last longer than the last layer that was peeled away. It strengthens your solipsism.

      2 replies 1 retweet 29 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 10
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      Solipsism is in one sense a sort epistemic confidence graph as you go radially outwards from the void at the heart of being. At your current boundary, the confidence of knowing falls of a cliff. The smaller the boundary of self, the steeper the cliff.

      3 replies 1 retweet 20 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 10
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      So growing solipsism, in the context of a ego being shrunk by an instrumental connection with reality is a sign of a *growing* scientific sensibility. (not a necessary result of "doing STEM"... in fact shallow talent can grow the ego in a narrow prowess/procedural identity sense)

      2 replies 0 retweets 17 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 10
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      pic.twitter.com/LrXJEXUBTd

      1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 10
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      One of the fun things about playng twitter with a decently large following is that you can get as esoteric as you like and trust that at least a few people will be able to follow the whole line of argument (whether they agree or not) simply by virtue of the law of large numbers.

      1 reply 2 retweets 41 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 10
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      That's the most valuable thing about having ~36k followers... not the tweet that gets 500 likes (meh), but the 10 tweet esoteric thread that at least 1-2 people actually read to the end, grok in their own way, and appreciate. Large n twitter is basically rare fish fishing.

      4 replies 5 retweets 76 likes
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    10. Israel Gonzalez-Brooks‏ @izzyz Jun 10
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      Replying to @vgr

      Get me more followers so I can play too!!

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 10
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      Replying to @izzyz

      You've been on twitter since 2011 looks like and less than 1500 tweets... that's 0.45 tweets a day. I've been on since 2011 and tweeted 105k times... that's 22 tweets/day. Gotta earn it with high volume shitposting my friend

      6:53 PM - 10 Jun 2020
      • 1 Retweet
      • 22 Likes
      • Chenoe Hart Konstantin Gizdarski ❼ (wannabe) Ƀreaker of (the Bad) Loops Statistically Speaking halvorz ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Javier Rodriguez Nori Li Misha Saul Devon Welsh
      3 replies 1 retweet 22 likes
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        2. Danny Iskandar‏ @diskandartweet Jun 10
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          Replying to @vgr @izzyz

          Ok I will shit post with you :) he he he

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. mrgunn‏ @mrgunn Jun 10
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          Replying to @diskandartweet @vgr @izzyz

          Of course, if everyone shitposts at high volume, the benefit goes away, but I reckon few are committed enough to do it. Especially considering at least some of the posts have to be good.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. Show replies
        1. Israel Gonzalez-Brooks‏ @izzyz Jun 10
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          Replying to @vgr

          holy crap

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 11
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          Replying to @vgr @izzyz

          * correction: since 2007 for me

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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