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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 27
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      I’m generally pro-market/capitalist but for different reasons than libertarian idealists who think the market will magically fulfill a function like weather service or environment more “efficiently.” Which means I’m pro-state in more cases, and *different* cases.

      7 replies 5 retweets 74 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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      First efficiency is not an end in itself by default. There are other concerns like robustness, worst-case capability, values etc. The efficient way to provision many things is to not provision them. The efficient solution to poverty might be to let them all die.

      2 replies 2 retweets 47 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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      Second, it’s far better to have an apathetic, incompetent, inefficient state bureaucracy fulfilling a function than a crony capitalist efficiently, competently, and passionately pursuing self-interest against the public good.

      2 replies 8 retweets 52 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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      One reason free marketers often hate Coasean economics is that to be a Coasean is to recognize a) social costs b) the principal-agent problem of having a few profit-oriented firms in charge of a function where their agency allows them to hide social costs.

      1 reply 1 retweet 21 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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      Imagine if the response to the forest fires was to privatize firefighting. You can bet the first thing the crony capitalists would do is drive legislation declaring non-approved unlicensed AQI meters illegal and take over the EPA. Control your comp metrics. Hide externalities.

      4 replies 1 retweet 21 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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      It would naturally be a consortium of PE types who also own private prisons and wilderness interface real estate who bid for the firefighting business. They’d figure out a way to keep rich areas clean and avoid instrumenting poor areas with sensors.

      1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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      And then of course they’d financialize it somehow and sell subprime fire-risk bonds on international markets.

      1:58 PM - 27 Sep 2020
      • 15 Likes
      • Oliver Davis Everson-Rose Chude (5' 8) 🏴 Joel AQ AVGVSTA (wannabe) Ƀreaker of (the Bad) Loops Yeshoo
      1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
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        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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          The low-tech inefficiency of state agencies is often a feature. They are slightly likelier to fail in ways that randomizecthe social cost fallout. But really we need something better than markets and states for these social-cost-dominant problems.

          1 reply 1 retweet 19 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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          Any situation where it’s significantly easier to capture the upside and distribute the downside unevenly in hidden places full of people who can’t easily complain (crony oligarch high-capex sectors basically) needs a new kind of post-state/post-market solution.

          2 replies 3 retweets 34 likes
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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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          This is one reason I’m getting interested in low-cost networked sensors. Cellphone cameras have shown that low-cost sensor networks are the worst nightmare of both repressive states AND crony-capitalists. More sensors, more widely distributed. Sonic screwdrivers for everybody.

          6 replies 0 retweets 42 likes
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        5. End of conversation

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