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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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    7. 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 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
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    8. 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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    9. 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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      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.

      2:04 PM - 27 Sep 2020
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      • divraj twisted metal vibes Senthil Gandhi Justin Poirier Michal Kunc Paul Roales Spear of Fire Max E. johnny
      6 replies 0 retweets 42 likes
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        2. Varun Adibhatla‏ @vr00n Sep 27
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          Replying to @vgr

          Check out Safecasthttps://safecast.org/ 

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Varun Adibhatla‏ @vr00n Sep 27
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          This is what the crypto version of pothole sensor would look like. Any vehicle with a phone + camera surveys street quality and gets paid for their data exhaust. Government fixes streets that are on crappy quality glide slopes. https://streamr.network/  has some good concepts.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1.  🏴‏ @lightcap Sep 27
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          But net-positive or net-negative? Same tools and sensors are weaponized against repressive states.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        2. Oliver‏ @Ol_Wall Sep 27
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          Replying to @vgr

          This is super interesting!! What are your thoughts on when sensors still aren't enough? Both policing and say, water in flint, both have trouble being challenged by lots of sensors

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 27
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          Replying to @Ol_Wall

          Yeah it’s necessary not sufficient No idea where to go past that but it’s a starting point

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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        2. Nick Pinkston  🌐‏ @NickPinkston Sep 27
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          Replying to @vgr

          Essentially, this is a special case of "sunshine makes the best disinfectant". As the world becomes more computable, we're better able to understand the BS going on around us. I'm unsure if democracies are more atuned to info transparency, unlike say behind the Great Firewall.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Nick Pinkston  🌐‏ @NickPinkston Sep 27
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          Replying to @NickPinkston @vgr

          Though I've wondered if ubiquitous nano satellite internet sans filtering might be a huge threat to China and similar regimes. Especially with software defined radio / spread spectrum tech would be hard to jam en masse.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. End of conversation
        1. Irshaad Vawda‏ @irshaadv Sep 27
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          Not sure about the cameras part particularly. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/03/1002587/sousveillance-george-floyd-police-body-cams/amp/?__twitter_impression=true …

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        1. twisted metal vibes‏ @skullpile5 Sep 28
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          Cynically, I imagine that once sensing is easy, the contested territory will be in computation and information processing. Sensed data that's not analyzed is hidden. Sowing FUD with competing analyses would likely be the layer after.

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