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 Sep 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Okay here we go. This will probably be the last of my pandemic reads. I picked this out of several on the Spanish Flu because it promised a global perspective. Let’s see if it delivers. Basic facts well known by now: 50-100m dead 1918-20, 2.5-5%. Lost in footnotes of WW1.

      1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      WW1: 17m, WW2 60m, Black Death 75-200m (but much bigger in perfect terms, 1/3-1/2). Bigger than WW1+2 combined, much bigger than COVID at least so far, smaller than Black Death. Most deaths concentrated in 13 weeks in 1918, “broad in space, shallow in time” WW1 was opposite.

      2 replies 1 retweet 15 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      We’re gonna get a African-women-narrative/Talmudic style story. Circling the subject with widening circles of context, weaving it into space and time. Sounds like fanfic. I’m down. Let’s go.

      1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 14
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      So apparently global perspective is recent scholarship. In Europe death rate from Spanish Flu was the lowest. WW1 took 2-6x as many lives. But elsewhere SF was much bigger. So opposite pattern of Black Death.

      3 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 15
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Book has 8 parts with 2-5 chapters each. Part 1 is a history of flu viruses. They date to agriculture since they need higher population densities. More co-adapted to humans than malaria or leprosy, not as exclusively parasitic on us as mumps, measles, rubella.

      1 reply 0 retweets 13 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 15
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      So birds are thought to be the natural reservoir of flu viruses, and pigs an intermediate host. Makes sense that we’ve had avian and swine flus.

      1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 15
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Discussion of how the flu was likely very deadly when it first appeared between 5-12k years ago and adapted to humans. Some discussion of native Americans getting wiped out by European diseases. Dry opening so far, but I appreciate the context setting. Will stop here tonight.

      1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 17
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      1580 was the first properly documented flu pandemic. 10% of Rome died: 8000. Two in 18th century. 19th century was peak of crowd diseases generally.

      1 reply 1 retweet 11 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 17
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Industrial revolution cities “... were unable to sustain themselves— they needed a constant influx of healthy peasants from the countryside to make up for the lives lost to infection. Wars too brough epidemics in their wake.”

      1 reply 1 retweet 17 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 17
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      1830 and 1889, two flu pandemics in 18th century. So these things are not common. Wonder if there’s been a coronavirus pandemic before SARS-COV-2 and -1.

      2 replies 0 retweets 8 likes
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 17
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      1889 “Russian” flu — 3 waves, mild-severe-mild. 1 million. First one to be statistically profiled. It also attacked adults, not just elderly and children. Apparently Edvard Munch Scream was fly inspired 😱

      10:52 PM - 17 Sep 2020
      • 1 Retweet
      • 15 Likes
      • BDE pagan poetry 🐲 Kerry № Nazarii Alex Schleber 👽😷 Adventures in fake Nepal Claudius Link im only 5'3
      2 replies 1 retweet 15 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 17
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          By early 20th century cities were self-sustaining thanks to germ theory of disease, vaccines, and sanitation. Wars became deadlier than epidemics and military doctors learned to control disease in conflict. But viruses still a mystery.

          1 reply 0 retweets 13 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 17
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Even in the 19th century people thought of epidemics like earthquakes. Acts of god and beyond control. Hmm. Even with earthquakes today you can sort of manage risks by building on bedrock far from fault lines. I guess plate tectonics was like germ theory.

          3 replies 1 retweet 15 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 24
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          “In England [the plague’s] last visitation coincided with the Spanish flu” Infectious disease was still the big killer. Antibiotics hadn’t yet been discovered. Modern germ theory was still pretty new.

          2 replies 1 retweet 7 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 25
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Pasteur and Koch did their work between 1850-80. As new in 1918 as genetics today (which was unknown then) Viruses were discovered in 1890. So as new then as the World Wide Web today. Modernity is young.

          1 reply 1 retweet 21 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 25
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          March 4th 1918, guy named Albert Gitchell reported sick to the infirmary at Camp Funston in Kansas. Conventionally regarded as the start of the pandemic.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 25
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          By May, all over Europe and starting in Africa, by end of May in India. by June/July in China, Japan, Australia. Unclear where it started, but war helped spread it fast.

          1 reply 1 retweet 6 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 25
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          3/4 of French forces and half the British forces fell ill. This was the milder first wave.

          1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 26
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Longish tour of the spread of the second wave. Rather dry account of the complex pattern of spread. Peppered with a few anecdotes featuring Jung, Yeats, Kafka, Leo Szilard, etc. The war wraps and celebrations immediately cause crowd superspread events.

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 26
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Second wave was deadliest and ended by December. Australia was the only major region that kept it out via quarantine. But third wave in summer 1919 got them too. So 3 waves of a few months each. Kinda different from the relatively continuous ooga-booga of Covid.

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
          Show this thread
        11. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 26
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Now that we’ve surveyed the station-temporal contours, on to Chapter 4, about the disease itself. Mostly mild in first wave but deadly in second. Mutation? Most deaths due to bacterial pneumonia, Faces and extremities turned dark and they came up with a color coded death watch.

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 26
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          So far I’ll admit this book is very dry relative to others. This African-grandmother circling narrative model is a little almanac-like. I think we’re going to go over the 3 waves with a dozen different lenses.

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
          Show this thread
        13. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          “The distress of the bereaved was compounded by the look of the cadaver: not just the blackened face and hands, but the horribly distended chest” That’s Spanish Flu. Do Covid victims look as distressing?

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        14. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Extended section on the symptoms. It’s interesting to compare this to the relatively limited descriptions of blac death in the Tuchman book. Distant mirror vs proximal mirror. That came alive better but this feels more grimly real and less like aestheticized fiction.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        15. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          “Delirium was common... [a doctor] described his patients’ anxiety-provoking sensation that the end of the world was nigh, and their episodes of violent weeping.”

          1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
          Show this thread
        16. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Vignette in Rio, anchored by the story of a young man, Nava, living with middle-class uncle’s family. He fell sick. Depressingly familiar tale of good shortages and closed schools. It was initially dismissed as an old-people-killer and elites didn’t want over-reaction.

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
          Show this thread
        17. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Vaccines had only just been socialized. Ten years earlier smallpox vaccinations had led to vaccine riots in Brazil. By 1918 most were vaccinated but state public health was still unpopular.

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        18. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Bodies piling up in street. A famous carnival reseller, Jamanta, Jose Luis Cordeiro, drove a tram up and down the streets collecting bodies and dumping them at the graveyard. The church bells rang continuously driving people living nearby nuts. Shades of NYC under Covid.

          1 reply 1 retweet 4 likes
          Show this thread
        19. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          “Terror transformed the city, which took on a post-apocalyptic aspect. Footballers played to empty stadia” Err why? They didn’t have TV...

          3 replies 1 retweet 4 likes
          Show this thread
        20. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Color blindness was a symptom, so many accounts are shaped by the bleak colors. The book takes its title inspiration from one such, a Katherine Anne Porter story. Pale refers to the literal paleness. This pandemic was witnessed in black and white by many https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Horse,_Pale_Rider …

          1 reply 1 retweet 13 likes
          Show this thread
        21. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Chapter ends with the death of Nava’s pretty second cousin who he appears to have had a crush on. This thing was very quick compared to Covid. In and out in 2 months but huge toll very quickly. Must have been like a horror movie.

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
          Show this thread
        22. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Chapter 5. Extended riff on dangers of naming diseases poorly (eg swine flu is not spread by pigs but pork exportsxweee banned by several countries anyway). Discussion of CDC naming guidelines which looks grim in light of Trump drumming on China/Wuhan virus.

          1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
          Show this thread
        23. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Spanish Flu was of course not Spanish. It had been in US, UK, France for months before it arrived in Spain. Wartime censorship plus neutrality of Spain plus encouragement from the nations at war led to the name sticking.

          1 reply 2 retweets 12 likes
          Show this thread
        24. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          This book is making me relive March/April in a deja vu way, and also re-frightening me, which is good. I might have been getting sloppy. Earlier this week, someone in my close circle died of Covid, much too young, and it was a sudden sharp reality check. This is still very real.

          2 replies 2 retweets 24 likes
          Show this thread
        25. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          “In Senegal, it was the Brazilian flu, and in Brazil, it was the German flu...” Some progress. In 2020 we have more certainty around origins but at least largely call it coronavirus except for troglodytes like trump. Some evolution of a shared sense of humanity.

          1 reply 2 retweets 14 likes
          Show this thread
        26. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          That was a short chapter on names that ended on a note of “sorry Spain, sucks to be you” Took a while for it to be recognized that there was one global pandemic in, not many local ones. Again, progress. We knew pretty quickly. It was named, tagged, and tracked fairly early.

          1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes
          Show this thread
        27. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Now back to the medical story and a confused early understanding due to a misattribution of influenza to a bacterium by germ theory pioneer Richard Pfeiffer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Friedrich_Johannes_Pfeiffer …pic.twitter.com/OioqL0564X

          1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes
          Show this thread
        28. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          People confused it with cholera, dengue, plague, typhus... most doctors would only have looked at surface symptoms like black spots on cheekbones. The most advanced practitioners would have made sputum bacterial cultures mistakenly following Pfeiffer’s theory.

          1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes
          Show this thread
        29. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          This was just 102 years ago. All four of my grandparents were living through this 😓 Today we’re lucky enough to have political controversies about proper testing of the correct thing. The FUD in 1918 must have been mind-boggling. They were MINOs: Moderns in Name Only.

          1 reply 1 retweet 15 likes
          Show this thread
        30. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          In Chile, elitist doctors thought it was typhus (spread by lice and apparently considered a disease of social decline), blamed the poor, and launched a misguided typhus campaign but didn’t ban gatherings. The 2 look alike except typhus spreads slower and ends in a rash.

          1 reply 2 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        31. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The sanitary brigades invaded poor homes and ordered the poor to strip, wash, and shave hair. In some places they burned down poor tenements and the homelessness probably caused flu to spread faster. All societal ignorance reliably hurts the poor first. 😶 Still true with Covid

          1 reply 2 retweets 25 likes
          Show this thread
        32. Show replies

      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