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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 Jul 14
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      I concluded about 3y ago that people invested past critical point in culture war are beyond my ability to influence in any way. I’m decent at ordinary influence but not cult deprogramming. But many are convinced they can “rescue” their “lost” peers. Guess who they are?

      6 replies 3 retweets 76 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      Yep, those who are themselves past the critical point on the other side. Bunch of deep blue-pilled types trying to redpill each other. Cultists trying to deprogram opposed cultists. Me, I drop any friend bitten by zombies on any side, though they usually drop me first.

      4 replies 4 retweets 79 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      My own learning curve: Phase 1, ignoring, 2000-09: noticing but blithely ignoring clear early signs as “depressing to think about” Phase 2, denial 2009-13: “surely this will never get worse than fringe crackpottery?”

      1 reply 1 retweet 39 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      Phase 3, rationalization, 2014-15: “okay this is a thing, gotta culture-war-proof of my social media. It’s a problem with real causes that will get addressed, and then storm will pass.” Phase 4, siege, 2016-17: “ah shit, those of us NOT invested are the fringe crackpots now”

      1 reply 1 retweet 52 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      Phase 5, normalization, 2018-19: “Shit, this has no real cause or resolution, it’s a way of life for these people. Need active countermeasures and zero-tolerance defenses against it penetrating my life. This is now a cost of having a life beyond domestic siege now.”

      1 reply 2 retweets 44 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      Phase 6, endgame, 2020: “well, this might be weaponized by a virus and kill us all. It’s not a stable or nornalizable situation.”

      2 replies 2 retweets 41 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      The main reason my neck of the woods has been largely free of culture warring, beyond a few border skirmishes, is not ant kind of foresight or planning. It’s pure laziness. For web properties to become targets or loci of the war, they need to be highly newbie friendly.

      2 replies 1 retweet 44 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      I’ve been too lazy to make anything I do particularly accessible, learnable, or coherent enough to sustain aesthetic projections. That’s a fancy way of saying my shit is a fragmented mess that does not reward or reinforce the 3 core traits. It’s not worth colonizing as a warzone.

      3 replies 1 retweet 74 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      Of the 3 criteria, which I think are each almost necessary and collectively almost sufficient, it’s the #2, amirite-mockery humor that makes is awkward to tag explicitly. Though I think I have a decent, broad sense of humor both as consumer and producer, it’s cringe to claim this

      1 reply 2 retweets 19 likes
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    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      But I don’t know how else to describe this. It’s not humorlessness only. It’s narrow humor range. If life is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think, perhaps it’s rare to have high humor and emotion range. Humor is an anti-emotion in a way.

      2 replies 4 retweets 50 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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      Humor is how intense feelings you didn’t know you had present their ridiculous aspect and find release. So there’s almost a zero-sum there based on a personality set point. You can laugh more or feel more. It’s not a choice, it’s a trait.

      9:44 PM - 14 Jul 2020
      • 3 Retweets
      • 40 Likes
      • NothingBetter Adele Dewey-Lopez Brett Williams doctor professor thinkagainer Feeling(‘)s Mutual Jens Kabelo Moiloa Rahul Ramchandani SIR Alan Githinji
      4 replies 3 retweets 40 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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          It’s not that thinking preference implies high quality thought or that feeling preference implies refined, nuanced emotional processing. It just means you lean towards thinking by default or feeling by default. Not that you’re good at it.

          2 replies 2 retweets 23 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 14
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          Anyhoo, not sure where I was going with the thread. I guess it’s sort of an update to my 2017 culture war map, and the internet of beefs post this year. I’ve concluded we’re in a chronic end-of-history conflict with no vaccine, so wear a culture-war mask and get on with your life

          1 reply 0 retweets 39 likes
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 18
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          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          Adding this thought here. There’s an aspect of inability to play here, as a core culture-warrior trait. They can do sports, and play cat-mouse, or bully, but not play. Important exception is a subset of shitposting edgelords. https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1284658772384702464?s=21 …https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1284658772384702464 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          All work and no play make *ism a dull ideology
          1 reply 1 retweet 14 likes
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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 18
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          The distinction is probably finite-game play (Huizenga) vs infinite-game play (Carse). The former strives to win (“own the libs” and “spot the your/you’re error” are clear examples). It’s play of sorts and there is laughter, but it’s not jumping-in-puddles type fun.

          1 reply 1 retweet 14 likes
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        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jul 18
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          “Games Culture Warriors Play” would be a good inventory to attempt.

          0 replies 0 retweets 21 likes
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        7. End of conversation
        1. Balázs Kégl‏ @balazskegl Jul 15
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          Replying to @vgr

          You can have it both but it takes immense effort of self knowledge. Often humor is a tool to oppress your feelings when the original oppressors are long gone. Once you recover your ability to feel, you can have a shot to recover another kind of humor.

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        2. Balázs Kégl‏ @balazskegl Jul 15
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          Replying to @vgr

          I learned so much from you about humor. It's a fascinating thought. What is the type of humor that you can have while staying in touch with your feelings.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. charles faris‏ @harveyparadox Jul 21
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          Replying to @balazskegl @vgr

          Kurt Vonnegut

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. End of conversation
        1. charles faris‏ @harveyparadox Jul 21
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          Replying to @vgr

          You can laugh more or you can cry more, this is true. I personally find much humor to be a felt experience. In some ways I find humor to be a bridge between intellect and feeling. Laughter is a physical reaction to certain trains of thought or unexpected physical actions/images.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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