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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

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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 Sep 6
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Niall Ferguson

      Hmm I didn’t know Max Weber helped draft the Weimar constitution. Case that the Weimar analogy is misguided.https://twitter.com/nfergus/status/1302628444887330816 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Niall FergusonVerified account @nfergus
      You don’t need Weimar to explain the appeal of immigration restriction, tariffs, and a culture war directed against a “globalist” elite — not to mention the loosest monetary policy in American history. Why I disagree with @sullydish on "Weimerica": https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-09-06/trump-s-america-is-no-weimar-republic?sref=ojq9DljU …
      1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 6
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      Ferguson’s argument rests on several distinctions: 1. Weimar constitution was wildly different 2. Weimar elites supported Hitler, unlike Trump 3. Most German adults were WW1 vets, most US ones are not 4. The economy was way worse 5. Hitler had global military ambitions

      2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 6
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      I think most people don’t make the analogy in such precise structural terms but a broader mood. Both countries, for different reasons, and via different paths, were vulnerable to far-right populism. The effect is also different because tech to achieve goals is better.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 6
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      You don’t need hundreds of deaths in the streets when social death/reputational assassinations have similar results. You don’t need to launch an industrial world war against the world if you can fight an institutional war against global institutions that matter way more.

      1 reply 1 retweet 3 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 6
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      The analogy is useful if done right.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 6
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      I’ve been wondering lately if people overindex on the death count as the kpi of political conflict severity. From a humanitarian perspective 10x more deaths may be 10x more tragic, but from a political effectiveness perspective, one viral death on social media = 100 1930s deaths

      3 replies 1 retweet 9 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 6
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      In a way “human life” is like the gold standard of moral currency. We’re no longer on it. We’re in sort of Breton Woods weird hybrid stage of gold+dollar. Gold = human life, dollar = fiat institutional capital base of global orgs. And we may get off gold standard entirely.

      1 reply 2 retweets 5 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 6
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      By which I don’t mean human life will become worthless. It will just become a precious hedge commodity like gold today, but with no special status. It will allow us to gauge seriousness of low-fatality crises properly. It will make humane euthanasia laws politically viable.

      2 replies 2 retweets 2 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 6
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      Sounds ugly but “way fewer people are dying” should NOT be a reason to take a political crisis less seriously. People dying is not only not the only way people can suffer, it is not the worst way. The worst way is people being forced to *live* in intolerable conditions.

      9:24 AM - 6 Sep 2020
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      • Karen Karenina Chris Chelberg Kerry John Guiney im only 5'3 Ralph Old Dad Benjamin Dean Mahala Yangstein Steve Faktor
      5 replies 1 retweet 15 likes
        1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 6
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          I should work out this analogy in detail (gold standard = human death standard).

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        1. Lester Burnham‏ @LesterZH Sep 6
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          Replying to @vgr

          "Everyone dies, but not everyone lives."

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        2. David DiSabatino‏ @DavidDiSab Sep 6
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          Replying to @vgr

          I think this is right, but it actually dovetails with Fergusson's argument. The German people were suffering in the interwar period far more than Americans are today & that suffering was imposed intentionally on them by France & Britain. Americans' economic suffering is the 1/

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        3. David DiSabatino‏ @DavidDiSab Sep 6
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          Replying to @DavidDiSab @vgr

          result of malicious or incompetent actions of American economic elites. A political uprising against those elites - I mean a real one, not the faux populist Trumpian BS - based on competence & aimed at spreading prosperity to all levels of society could succeed in some of 2/

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1. NOLAN GRAY‏ @nolangray_ Sep 6
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          Replying to @vgr

          I think it’s a, “they can’t work if they’re dead”

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        1. Karen Karenina‏ @culteyes Sep 6
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          Replying to @vgr

          Not to mention all the pharma profits that come from extending people’s lives despite quality of life being intolerable — and the societal pressure to “fight” for every last one of those tormented last days.

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