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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 Aug 8
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted andrew furman  🏥 🛡

      This is exactly backwards. Urbanization was driven by desire to escape oppressive togetherness of small town/village life. The primary draw of cities in history has been escaping your tribe. The idea that you might *find* your tribe is relatively new (1960s?) bonus possibilityhttps://twitter.com/furman/status/1292284733578047488 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      andrew furman  🏥 🛡 @furman
      will the trend towards urbanization reverse post COVID? 🏡remote work and distancing for years makes me think suburban populations will rise 🏬on the other hand, maybe we can’t reverse a 200 year trend, and the desire for togetherness pic.twitter.com/C8J28GHoOj
      11 replies 22 retweets 160 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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      For people citing “economics” as a/the reason, economics is never the answer to “why”, only “how.” It enables social escape, independence, individualism, means to live on own terms etc.

      3 replies 3 retweets 32 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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      Social escape was main carrot. Early on industrialists had to coerce farmers away from land during droughts, and actively work to break family ties (like younger sons with weaker land claims). Once cities became established as individual escape zone, coercion became unnecessary.

      1 reply 0 retweets 27 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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      It is especially weird to posit individual-agent reasons like economic opportunity when primary challenge was to individuate away in the first place from tight social settings where economic decisions were made by families and cash played a smaller role than mutuality.

      1 reply 0 retweets 21 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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      If you read the early history of urbanization (pre-industrial) the economy was so subservient to culture (eg sumptuary laws, limits on innovation) that to go urban was literally an act of freedom-seeking. Many early cities bought their freedom from feudal lords.

      3 replies 2 retweets 32 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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      I have a weird theory that oppressive rural conditions like serfdom and working peasants to death emerged *after* cities became established for escape via pre-industrial crafts. Industrialization accelerated an existing trend, it didn’t create it.

      8:54 PM - 8 Aug 2020
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      • Bandeauxx. MilkersAnonymous Michael McCarron ᴮᴱPatricia Dysinger⁷ emma🍯👼🏻 Hansel Ang 汪泉良 Gordon Brander max arb Khadeja R (she/her) nearly in hiatus -limited mode
      3 replies 2 retweets 24 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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          Cities created the rural labor shortage that drove a vicious cycle of increasing oppression by land owners that increased allure of escape. Even in England where peasants were perhaps the most free. The coercion theory is overstated though it was certainly a factor early on.

          2 replies 0 retweets 24 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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          The striking thing about cities is *how little* togetherness they need for basic functioning. Since Covid started I haven’t in-person interacted with anyone except my wife and complete strangers. No friends or extended family. This would not be possible in villages/small towns.

          1 reply 2 retweets 29 likes
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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          I do think Covid might reverse urbanization. But it won’t be a return to agrarian ways so much as a colonization of highly automated/mechanized countryside by urban Zoom expats who will bring urban ideas of freedom with them. They won’t meekly accept rural togetherness/community.

          6 replies 8 retweets 52 likes
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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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          200 years (really 800 by my extended definition of urbanization) is a lot of momentum, but digital culture is a lot of centripetal force.

          1 reply 0 retweets 18 likes
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        6. End of conversation
        1. Vinay Gupta‏ @leashless Aug 8
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          Replying to @vgr

          In Scotland they wanted to drive the peasants off the land into the cities, both to take the land, and to get workers for the mills. "Highland Clearances." My family lost a farm.

          0 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
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        2. nick bea‏ @beatnikpicnic Aug 8
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          Replying to @vgr

          Yes this is weird, any sources that suggest this to you that you can recommend checking out?

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 8
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          Replying to @beatnikpicnic

          If I had strong evidence it would just be a theory, not a weird theory. Speculations cobbled together from various readings. A key clue though is that non-agrarian smaller cities began rising in the 12-14th centuries well before industrialization, around trades.

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
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