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 27
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      26. Cargo-cult selection hypothesis. Civilization is the process of turning sociopathy into good mannershttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1309988191114416128 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Observation: psychopaths are often charming/reassuring and can put you at ease in a trusting, vulnerable state. Hypothesis A: Psychopaths learn to fake norms of trustworthiness and reassurance Hypothesis B: Societies evolve to normalize psychopath behaviors as norms for all
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 28
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      27. Verb for doing sciencehttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1310692412537225217?s=21 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      We need a verb meaning “doing science” in elemental, non-institutional, non-bureaucratic sense. Something like “investigating” Not “research” since that’s overloaded with methodological baggage from professionalized publication-oriented science. Small-s, no exclamation point.
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 28
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      28. Dead-end historyhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1310635395005071360?s=21 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      I can no longer remember what the topline narrative of the NYT was like back in 2014, before the current creeping mix of trump-kremlinology and woke clickbait took over. What was the narrative back when people like Friedman and Brooks were still in charge of it? Anyone remember?
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 28
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      29. Smugismshttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1310769794665177088?s=21 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Starting a thread of my most annoying one-liners, selected for smugness and self-satisfaction 😎 https://twitter.com/vgr/status/530754536625815553 …
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 10
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      30. Free moneyhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1314983875546767362 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      It really is very hard to care about money past the point it stops being a source of immediate anxiety. People capable of caring enough to solve for money past their personal anxiety point have a kind of superpower. It might even be the defining trait of entrepreneurs.
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 13
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      31. Doing only 1 thinghttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1316168198866132992?s=21 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Prioritization is the communism of attention management 😖 Do or do not. There is no priority. Once you make a list of things that need doing, and prioritize them according to any metric at all, you can guarantee you will want to do something that’s not in the list at all.
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 17
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      32. Memory genreshttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1175999844101439488 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Here’s a spectrum of “memory” genres 1. Autobiography 2. Family history 3. Personal memoir 4. Subcultural history 5. Public life memoir 6. Participant history Prediction: All of it is in trouble. Our cultural memory processes are breaking.
      Show this thread
      2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 21
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      33. Long-arc narrative recessionhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1318411552098111489 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Hmm. Can any long-arc extended universe type stuff be traced to the 1920s? Especially in genre fiction? Considering a hypothesis that it was a slump decade for EUs.
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      Show this thread
    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 23
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      34. Long-term thinkinghttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1319819179491381248 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      long-term thinking makes people unhappy because it almost necessarily means they’re thinking about big problems the only future thing you can be fairly sure about is that the big problems of today won’t go away miraculously and will last as long as you expect, probably longer
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 23
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      35. Pandemic live-reads meta threadhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1246565978021842944 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Pandemic live-reads meta-thread. I have reasons I’m reading these right now and finding them useful for current headspace, but I’ll save those for a blog post. First one was history of Astounding, the legendary sci-fi magazine. https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1233210973793574912 …
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 1
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      36. 4 types of communityhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/971454478825046016 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      1/ I’ve concluded there are 4 types of relationships meatspace communities can have with digitization, which I call a) Circled Wagons, b) Resurrected, c) Atomized, and d) Precipitated.
      Show this thread
      7:33 AM - 1 Nov 2020
      • 1 Retweet
      • 5 Likes
      • Flyingdown Blake McDowall Joshua Mitchell Emmett Shear Zakris Pierson Kevin Malone
      2 replies 1 retweet 5 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 20
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          37. Reading the Astonishing Stories projecthttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1329875894605758464 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          The Yak Collective @yak_collective has been doing a futures project called Astonishing Stories, led by @SachinB91 and @WabiSabiFutures to explore near-future scenarios. The output is a series of short stories being published as an evolving anthology https://www.yakcollective.org/projects/astonishing-stories/ …
          Show this thread
          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 24
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          38. "Thinking for yourself"https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1056603055309778944 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          In practice “thinking for yourself” = Being redpilled: Leaving large, loose tribe for small, tight one (60%) Ignorance-veiling: Maintaining composure and 50-50 bothsides priors about everything (30%) “Critical thinking” Ritual, absence-of-evidence skepticism (9%) Real (1%)
          Show this thread
          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 24
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          39. Trying to have both sides of a conversationhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1330917074500141057 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          People really like to have both sides of conversations. You’d think this is a sort of stylized performance element but it isn’t. Many people have a real style that a,punts to: have both sides of a conversation, get mad when live counterparty goes off script, to force them back on https://twitter.com/leftistexe/status/1330386159176982529 …
          Show this thread
          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 25
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          40. Id theory of narrative animationhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1331673021367480320 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          Plot and character are in some ways the commodity elements of fiction, and how-to books spend 90% of their words on those. But good genre fiction usually seems to center a non-basic element: LOTR: fake languages Culture: names of ships Star Trek: species This seems important.
          Show this thread
          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 30
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          41. Futurecast 2071.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1333473709659570176 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          US history as synecdoche for world history really begins in 1854. Not coincidentally that was peak UK too. Everything before that is mostly provincial backwater prequel stuff. Bleeding Kansas, Perry in Japan, US tech at London world fair (1851) were the turning points.
          Show this thread
          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 13
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          42. Data personhoodhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1338237296164814850 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          See also... this idea is becoming more popular by the decade. https://aeon.co/essays/how-to-understand-cells-tissues-and-organisms-as-agents-with-agendas …
          Show this thread
          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 24h24 hours ago
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          43. Rant about lack of covid-fallout financial damage maps leading to the mooting of a new religion, Stackocentrism.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1341099812687466496 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          wish there was a way to see financial damage the way you can see maps of forest fires or bomb damage from wars... covid is such a physically bloodless catastrophe it's really hard to see the extreme invisible damage
          Show this thread
          0 replies 1 retweet 4 likes
          Show this thread
        9. End of conversation
        1. Michell‏ @MichellBasler Nov 20
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation
          Replying to @vgr

          Meatspacepic.twitter.com/iO94ajlBfA

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
          Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. Undo
          Undo

      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