Skip to content
By using Twitter’s services you agree to our Cookies Use. We and our partners operate globally and use cookies, including for analytics, personalisation, and ads.
  • Home Home Home, current page.
  • About

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Language: English
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Bahasa Melayu
    • Català
    • Čeština
    • Dansk
    • Deutsch
    • English UK
    • Español
    • Filipino
    • Français
    • Hrvatski
    • Italiano
    • Magyar
    • Nederlands
    • Norsk
    • Polski
    • Português
    • Română
    • Slovenčina
    • Suomi
    • Svenska
    • Tiếng Việt
    • Türkçe
    • Ελληνικά
    • Български език
    • Русский
    • Српски
    • Українська мова
    • עִבְרִית
    • العربية
    • فارسی
    • मराठी
    • हिन्दी
    • বাংলা
    • ગુજરાતી
    • தமிழ்
    • ಕನ್ನಡ
    • ภาษาไทย
    • 한국어
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文
  • Have an account? Log in
    Have an account?
    · Forgot password?

    New to Twitter?
    Sign up
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

Tweets

  • © 2020 Twitter
  • About
  • Help Center
  • Terms
  • Privacy policy
  • Imprint
  • Cookies
  • Ads info
Dismiss
Previous
Next

Go to a person's profile

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @

Promote this Tweet

Block

  • Tweet with a location

    You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

    Your lists

    Create a new list


    Under 100 characters, optional

    Privacy

    Copy link to Tweet

    Embed this Tweet

    Embed this Video

    Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Hmm, there was a problem reaching the server.

    By embedding Twitter content in your website or app, you are agreeing to the Twitter Developer Agreement and Developer Policy.

    Preview

    Why you're seeing this ad

    Log in to Twitter

    · Forgot password?
    Don't have an account? Sign up »

    Sign up for Twitter

    Not on Twitter? Sign up, tune into the things you care about, and get updates as they happen.

    Sign up
    Have an account? Log in »

    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

    Country Code For customers of
    United States 40404 (any)
    Canada 21212 (any)
    United Kingdom 86444 Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2
    Brazil 40404 Nextel, TIM
    Haiti 40404 Digicel, Voila
    Ireland 51210 Vodafone, O2
    India 53000 Bharti Airtel, Videocon, Reliance
    Indonesia 89887 AXIS, 3, Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata
    Italy 4880804 Wind
    3424486444 Vodafone
    » See SMS short codes for other countries

    Confirmation

     

    Welcome home!

    This timeline is where you’ll spend most of your time, getting instant updates about what matters to you.

    Tweets not working for you?

    Hover over the profile pic and click the Following button to unfollow any account.

    Say a lot with a little

    When you see a Tweet you love, tap the heart — it lets the person who wrote it know you shared the love.

    Spread the word

    The fastest way to share someone else’s Tweet with your followers is with a Retweet. Tap the icon to send it instantly.

    Join the conversation

    Add your thoughts about any Tweet with a Reply. Find a topic you’re passionate about, and jump right in.

    Learn the latest

    Get instant insight into what people are talking about now.

    Get more of what you love

    Follow more accounts to get instant updates about topics you care about.

    Find what's happening

    See the latest conversations about any topic instantly.

    Never miss a Moment

    Catch up instantly on the best stories happening as they unfold.

    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      2x2: Non-exotic, non-real: hobby crafts like model building. Relaxing and safe. Exotic, non-real: geewhiz tech. Stimulating in a mid way, and politically safe. Non-exotic, real: adult satisfaction, politically safe. Exotic+real: god-feeling, politically destabilizing

      1 reply 2 retweets 16 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Most of the hatred in the tech backlash is due to techies wandering into the exotic+real quadrant and awakening new Promethean forces, but then being unwilling to exercise the political agency unleashed. Those who want the agency can’t exercise it, those who have it don’t want it

      1 reply 2 retweets 20 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      As a result, the political agency gets downcycled to mere economic agency, often of a banal (eg advertising) or criminal variety.

      1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Not sure where I’m going with this, but something to do with the general air of NPCness around a lot of tech tinkering that feels consciously self-chosen. Which is funny because of the “doer” and “maker” self-images that go with it. Agency as a hobby that avoids turning real.

      2 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      To non-techies this seems like “not working on real problems”. Really they mean “real but not exotic so you help out in ways we want you to, but otherwise shut up and stay in your lane” Try real+exotic and you’ve bought yourself a political fight whether you want one or not.

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      This is partly why startup techies love “disruption” in a limited business sense. It’s a sort of deactivated political agency that disturbs just the economic peace and makes more money than power.

      1 reply 1 retweet 3 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      But if business disruption is the limit of your political vision you’re still in hobby mode. A big, lucrative hobby but short of dent-in-the-universe ambitions you might pretend to. The most interesting techies embrace the political consequences of what they do.

      1 reply 2 retweets 10 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Which doesn’t mean turning into a politician formally or haunting DC. That’s just selling tech short for a shot at cronyism with existing political equilibrium. It means letting the tech find full expression and accepting the consequences, including any hate.

      1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      It’s saying — this is a legit way of being human and the rest of you have to deal. Not apologizing for the impacts of tech or going through ritual contrition and penance. You moved the equation and created an imperative for others to either adapt or suffer being left behind.

      3 replies 0 retweets 8 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      It feels cruel to say this, but if others don’t feel a responsibility to keep up, and try to impose on others the burden of maintaining a changeless state, you need feel no responsibility to bend over backwards maintaining an equilibrium you don’t need.

      2 replies 1 retweet 12 likes
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Change is natural and inevitable, changeless stability is what takes unnatural force to maintain. A world that makes those who lean into change feel apologetic towards those who resist it is backwards.

      11:29 AM - 29 Aug 2020
      • 2 Retweets
      • 14 Likes
      • grigori milov Raghavendra Talur Udit Mavinkurve purple prose and logic Anuraj R. SamH Bryan M
      5 replies 2 retweets 14 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Nate Angell‏ @xolotl Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation
          Replying to @vgr

          Hm. The change of entropy at least is inevitable. I wonder if a deeper dive into stories like Prometheus or Frankenstein or Westworld might help explore these situations...

          2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Nate Angell‏ @xolotl Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation
          Replying to @xolotl @vgr

          Nate Angell Retweeted Nate Angell

          Now I really want to connect these two threads: Also, do @vgr and @rwang0 know each other?https://twitter.com/xolotl/status/1299780467936305152 …

          Nate Angell added,

          Nate Angell @xolotl
          “Its short-term goal is to build a device that can help people with specific health conditions.” /cc @caseorganic /ht @rwang0 https://twitter.com/cloud_opinion/status/1299720760026689536 …
          1 reply 1 retweet 1 like
        4. Show replies
        1. New conversation
        2. Tentatively returning to this hellsite‏ @pneumatik Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation
          Replying to @vgr

          For most of human history there was basically no change. Society and technology changed on the generation scale, at most. Ancient Egypt was relatively unchanging for 2500 to 5000 years.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Tentatively returning to this hellsite‏ @pneumatik Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation
          Replying to @pneumatik @vgr

          I’m not arguing that the modern era of more rapid change (last few hundred years) is bad or unnatural. I just don’t think it’s quite the default state for things to change constantly.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. End of conversation
        1. isaMe‏ @QuantoQuant Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation
          Replying to @vgr

          But, but... carbon neutrality to resist climate change 🌪 is change itself that sounds neutral to some but incendiary to others. So no Green New Deal because it’s change that ends up not changing? Or yes — because it’s change that restores equilibrium? 🧐

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
          Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. Undo
          Undo
        1. New conversation
        2. Matt Kent‏ @m4ttk3nt Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation
          Replying to @vgr

          I heard your interview in the @EconTalker podcast. You talked about the idea that social media has increased the available bit transfer rate, and that the ideas in most books produced today aren’t worth the effort it takes to create and propagate them - that we can traffic in 1/

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Matt Kent‏ @m4ttk3nt Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation
          Replying to @m4ttk3nt @vgr @EconTalker

          interesting ideas so much more quickly now, that all the effort required to produce a book is wasted and could be devoted to generating new ideas through mediums such as this. The obverse of that coin is that interesting ideas float through the ether half-baked. 2/2

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. End of conversation
        1. Wat Ching‏ @watching102 Sep 5
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation
          Replying to @vgr

          as long as electronics parcels time on scales too femto/googol for contemporary brain it's techart in front of the bourse [no *real* power/politic] @m4ttk3nt

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
          Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. Undo
          Undo

      Loading seems to be taking a while.

      Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.

        Promoted Tweet

        false

        • © 2020 Twitter
        • About
        • Help Center
        • Terms
        • Privacy policy
        • Imprint
        • Cookies
        • Ads info