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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 14
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      Gen X is last generation to have a widespread interest in democracy as a truly interesting idea capable of opening up new human conditions less expressive political systems cannot get to. Millennials believe/disbelieve in it as a matter of values. Z’s seem to have given up on it

      15 replies 29 retweets 189 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 14
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      I genuinely consider democracy, broadly construed, to be a strictly more expressive class of mechanisms than any other. It is like Peano arithmetic relative to say propositional logic or first order calculus. It can run programs other systems can’t.

      2 replies 3 retweets 55 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 14
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      Disbelief in democracy is fundamentally a failure of imagination.

      5 replies 12 retweets 78 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 14
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      I think it is also a symptom of at least serious subclinical depression. It takes a certain level of mental health to find democracy retreating, since most other systems offer a degree of mental health support in exchange for sacrificing agency.

      2 replies 4 retweets 48 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 14
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      Kinda like how people who have an anxiety-provoking lack of structure in their lives tend to join the military or institutional religions. Believing democracy is bad or a failed idea is kinda like believing everybody should join the military or convert to a religion.

      2 replies 5 retweets 44 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 14
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      * retreating —> interesting 2 tweets up. Not sure if autocorrect or obscure Freudian slip 😆

      10:39 PM - 14 Aug 2020
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      • Kameron Bashi Drake E. (he/him) 🌐𝓣𝓱𝓮 Neoliberal Rat Goddess🌐 Spear of Fire stupid twitt account Zhan Li 🇪🇺🇬🇧 foo Pamela Bates
      1 reply 2 retweets 14 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 14
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          Gen X witnessed the fall of the wall and a genuine if short-lived expansion of democracy. There’s a reason Fukuyama’s argument resonated so strongly then. It might have been the last such expansion. The democratic recession could easily last the rest of our lives.

          2 replies 8 retweets 47 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          I find discussions of “no true democracy,” direct vs indirect, republic vs pure, to be tedious and nerdy distractions for those tempted by other things. As far as I’m concerned, boundary of democratic models is not set by idealized forms or mechanisms but a broad disposition...

          2 replies 10 retweets 40 likes
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          ...created by the urge to recognize all humans as humans and be recognized as such in turn. The democratic disposition stands opposed to the dehumanization instinct in any form. In all other aspects it can be unbelievably messy and still work. This is why to be democratic is...

          3 replies 4 retweets 40 likes
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        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          ... to be suspicious of political ideologies rooted in specific ideals. To cherish an ideal is to venerate those who embody it best, and dehumanize those who don’t. It doesn’t matter whether that ideal is divinity, nobility, merit, etc... to venerate X is to dehumanize not-X

          2 replies 4 retweets 23 likes
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        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          The democratic disposition is tested most when you ask yourself if you’re willing to acknowledge humanity in its most corrupt, debased, stupid, weak, even evil individual manifestations. And of course in people very unlike yourself. This does not mean liking/relating to them...

          2 replies 5 retweets 24 likes
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        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          The democratic disposition is not a saintly or expansively ecumenical disposition. You can freely detest anybody and hold them in deep contempt. You can even be utterly misanthropic and hate everybody and still be democratic spirited. Seeing the humanity in others != liking them

          1 reply 4 retweets 31 likes
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        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          To be democratic is to recognize that others have as much right to exist as you, despite their flaws (from your POV). As do you, despite all your flaws from their POV. Perfection, perfectibility, or conformity to others’ ideas of goodness/worth is not necessary for you to exist

          1 reply 4 retweets 39 likes
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        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          This leads naturally to a certain pacifism, a certain tendency to limit your own urges to dominate others, resistance to any impulse towards terminal destruction of others, and minimalism in defense of yourself against such tendencies on the part of others

          4 replies 2 retweets 20 likes
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        10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          Humans are capable of being monsters. Democracy is how you secure your own existence without letting monstrousness in others unleash monstrousness in you. Because seeing others only as monsters, with no humanity, is the beginning of turning into one yourself.

          1 reply 6 retweets 45 likes
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        11. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          Don’t be a monster. Don’t let monsters get you. Beyond that... https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1073751685212692480?s=21 …https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1073751685212692480 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          You have no obligation to be useful or interesting to the world.
          3 replies 1 retweet 28 likes
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        12. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          I personally extend my democratic disposition to all animals, so I’m vegetarian. But I do eat plants. So my generalized principle of democracy is that there are only 3 ways to relate to another living thing: eat it, accept the legitimacy of being eaten by it, or let it vote.

          5 replies 1 retweet 28 likes
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        13. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 15
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          While I’ll do my best to avoid being eaten by a shark, I accept the possibility as part of the natural order of things. I’m fair game for sharks, potatoes are fair game for me.

          5 replies 0 retweets 21 likes
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        14. End of conversation

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