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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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    Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 19
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    This evening’s shitposting theme... witchcraft, magick, prayers vs spells etc... Here’s a unifying diagnostic question: do you have a preference for science fiction over fantasy, and if so why do you think that is given the null hypothesis that both are equally escapist?

    6:01 PM - 19 Oct 2020
    • 16 Likes
    • Lonny Sands mtobi Rahul Ramchandani Jeff @ semi-active 🎙 Piyush Maverick Tainguriya Customer Support 🎙 ethereal bisexuals united 🌻🌹 mark safranski jim Oliver
    12 replies 0 retweets 16 likes
      1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 19
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        My own response: I read both but I definitely have an extreme science fiction bias. I’ll eagerly accept a sonic screwdriver and mumbo-jumbo about warp cores and flux capacitors but be mostly indifferent to wands and spells.

        6 replies 0 retweets 15 likes
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      2. Leigh Honeywell in  🇨🇦‏Verified account @hypatiadotca Oct 19
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        Replying to @vgr

        hmm i think i disagree with your null hypo - science fiction typically has the prospect of being a real account of the future, someday, whereas fantasy is nonsense with dragons and shit. but uh i'm clearly biased.

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      3. DataInforms‏ @DataInforms Oct 19
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        Replying to @hypatiadotca @vgr

        And then you have Clark's 3rd law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" As a reformed hard Sci-fi-er, I found some fantasy where there was a tech inferred but so long ago implemented that it appeared magic ~ this worked for me

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      2. Reclusive Wizard‏ @ReclusiveWizard Oct 19
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        Replying to @vgr

        Fantasy stories tend to be superhero chosen one narratives, science fiction something else. I would say from my position in the entertainment field that the audience for fantasy is much more broad than the audience for sci-fi.

        2 replies 1 retweet 8 likes
      3. Reclusive Wizard‏ @ReclusiveWizard Oct 19
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        Replying to @ReclusiveWizard @vgr

        I think you might bounce off of fantasy because you fundamentally don’t believe that you’re more special than anyone else

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. apoorva srinivasan‏ @apoorvasriniva Oct 19
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        Replying to @vgr

        id argue fantasy is more escapist simply for of its worldbuilding

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      2. Artem Litvinovich‏ @theartlav Oct 19
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        Replying to @vgr

        Hm, fantasy sounds like the same story told over again and again. Scifi tend to tell different stories every time. Fantasy is just "a wizard did it" dead end. Scifi tends to provoke what-ifs and i-wonder-if-i-can-build-thats. Magic is hard to engineer.

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      3. Amanuel Sahilu‏ @a_manifolder Oct 19
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        Replying to @theartlav @vgr

        Love the last bit. Even in fantasy worlds where they've "scienced" their magic system, you get the sense that all the moving parts are pretty visible to you (that's why it feels consistent). And those parts don't often change from one fantasy to the next

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. Oliver‏ @Ol_Wall Oct 19
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        Replying to @vgr

        fantasy = fiction past Sci-fi = fiction future

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      1. jim‏ @AussieHodl Oct 19
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        Replying to @vgr

        Over a long enough time line, science fiction turns into fact, while science fantasy remains just that

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