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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

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      The spin is basically a Christian spin on the idea along the lines of meek inherit the earth or something. Narniya edition. It also lands roughly on something analogous yo what the postrat kids call “be good” or whatever (it’s their inner-ring ethics code, ironically).

      1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      To be clear, though the idea is structurally near identical (he’s conflated the loser and sociopath layers to some degree but out of disinterest in the distinction rather than unawareness), we draw very different conclusions from roughly the same phenomenology.

      1 reply 0 retweets 13 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      In particular, he is sensitive to the perils of the sociopath/inner ring layer, but not to its upside — what we’d call red-pill knowledge (general matrix sense, not mra). He thinks inner ring aspiration is entirely about simply wanting to be in the inner ring, not knowing more.

      2 replies 0 retweets 21 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      He is also a little too quick to present the craftsman/clueless state as some sort of blessed innocence state. Which is understandable for a Christian perspective. Do the right thing, let Jesus provide executive cover or something.

      2 replies 0 retweets 16 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      In practice, there are of course downsides to being the algorithmic robot that clueless/craftsman implies. The big one being you’re co-opted into sociopath crimes whether you want to or not. You may not be interested in the inner ring but the inner ring is interested in you.

      2 replies 0 retweets 33 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      If I were to tldr this in a Christian way it would probably be: “Don’t eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but recognize it for what it is. Stay in the Garden of Eden even after realizing there’s a world beyond. Nothing good comes of leaving it.”

      2 replies 0 retweets 11 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      Lewis was born in 1898 so was 46 when he delivered this commencement speech, same as me now. But the maturity and compactness of the formulation suggests he probably thought it through in his mid thirties like I did. So like 1934-35 when Hitler and Stalin were on the rise.

      2 replies 0 retweets 11 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      Which would explain his biases. I thought it through 2008-09... peak GFC but otherwise a pleasant late-neoliberal zeitgeist with no obvious big villains or dark clouds looming. That explains my biases. If I were thinking it through more recently I’d have landed darker too.

      2 replies 0 retweets 17 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      In case it isn’t obvious, Lewis’ version is *much* darker and more pessimistic about human nature than mine. He’s essentially advising you to skip an entire large zone of the human condition that plays out in inner rings out of fear of moral corruption.

      2 replies 0 retweets 21 likes
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    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      My advice is to learn the game and how to play it. Don’t get addicted to it, but don’t sit it out either. It’s a kind of acting dead/waldenponding. Especially if fetishizing “craft” as an embodiment of “good” is the alternative. Inner rings are part of life.

      6 replies 1 retweet 36 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 25
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Sam Bhagwat

      This is well worth reading as a counterpoint in the genre. I was actually looking for it earlier to add to the thread but had forgotten the ref. tldr of this: real inner circles (Ie informational) as a burden of being misunderstood you are not free to clear up. Much Straussian.https://twitter.com/calcsam/status/1320540431298502659 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Sam Bhagwat @calcsam
      Replying to @vgr
      I think the “realist” version of this advice is what Ellsberg told Kissinger about getting top secret clearance: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-limitations-knowledge/ …
      6:46 PM - 25 Oct 2020
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      • Mark Masterson 🇺🇸 Nā•thən Wī•nənt 🇺🇸 🎙 Piyush Maverick Tainguriya Customer Support 🎙 Sam Bhagwat Nathaniel Eliot visa is working on his ebook Divia Eden igiriwM@ 🇰🇪
      3 replies 1 retweet 11 likes
        1. 🅑🅔🅝‏ @ben_mathes Oct 25
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          Replying to @vgr

          Defense Against the Dark Arts is my favorite framing of the problem of evil: know it, how to combat it, don’t be it.

          0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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        1.  🎙 Piyush Maverick Tainguriya Customer Support  🎙‏ @MangoZeus Oct 25
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          Replying to @vgr

          Isn't intersectional liberalism all about inclusion into the inner ring for everyone who was left out of it?

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        2. michael vassar‏ @HiFromMichaelV Oct 27
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          Replying to @vgr

          michael vassar Retweeted Patrick McKenzie

          More precisely, contexts which try to maintain misunderstanding among all those who could retain the desire to clean up the misunderstanding. Sometimes people try to try, like this, https://mobile.twitter.com/patio11/status/936617895706083329 … but their installed psychological compulsions don't allow them to.

          michael vassar added,

          Patrick McKenzie @patio11
          Investors in venture-back companies are purchasing a product. It is critically important to understand that that product is growth. The reason tech is favored as an asset class that it appears to be one of few sources of growth available on the market at the moment at any price.
          Show this thread
          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. michael vassar‏ @HiFromMichaelV Oct 27
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          Replying to @HiFromMichaelV @vgr

          Social norms call for silencing of certain subject matter, especially material related to power and threats. This is largely done via silencing, stonewalling, and dismissing content as metaphorical, aesthetic or crazy. Woke terminology exists to accommodate this silencing.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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