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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 Nov 11
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      Free-market ideologues studiously undertheorize the transaction costs of high-grift environments. They act like lemon markets are a rare special phenomenon under asymmetric info/principal-agent-problem conditions and cannot be a general characteristic of the entire economy.

      3 replies 2 retweets 77 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 11
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      The amount of wealth it takes to simply be above the grifty layers of the economy is quite high now. But if you make it there, you'll probably adopt some pious beliefs about how the poors should just live humbly and honestly and forgo the things that are grift-ridden.

      2 replies 7 retweets 66 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 11
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      Societal inequality is one of those things that looks like it should have no consequences when you look at first order effects. "The economy is fair rewards for talent and efforts. Nobly accept a lifestyle that you can honorably afford. If you don't, you're the problem."

      1 reply 1 retweet 32 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 11
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      Except it isn't even close to that, and people react to the perception of unfairness by trying to get by grift what they cannot get by the narrow possibilities of honesty.

      1 reply 0 retweets 37 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 11
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      And there is also the stress. It's not necessarily a result of being at the bottom, but in the layers (mostly towards the bottom) where grifting is the cost of doing business. I suspect grifting when you're not temperamentally suited to it is more stressful than actual poverty.

      2 replies 2 retweets 37 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 11
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      Middle class isn't too grifty itself, but is often forced to navigate pervasive grift to sustain its lifestyle. Buying cars, dental services, home contracting... everything is exhausting grift-detection/mitigation. And that's assuming you can at least filter for competence.

      2 replies 4 retweets 58 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 11
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Michael Huber

      PNW seemed less grifty than SW. Midwest is middling-grifty. DC was also middling. I think for grift to become a big force in the economy, there has to be a disproportionately bigger local wealthy class and smaller middle class.https://twitter.com/nerdsnipe/status/1326592988848431104 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Michael Huber @nerdsnipe
      Replying to @vgr
      Where are the low grift regions?
      2 replies 0 retweets 12 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 11
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      Like, take something like dentistry or hair-styling in LA. There's a lot of rich people here for who are willing to pay big premiums to get exactly the service they want. Everybody wants that business. The cost of being a producer gets indexed to serving the premium market.

      1 reply 0 retweets 18 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 11
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      But then, those who can't get enough of the premium business are forced to serve the larger but less profitable middle, and resent it. So they turn to grift. By contrast, regions without a large ultrarich market get structured to serve the middle class.

      2 replies 1 retweet 21 likes
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    10. Varun Adibhatla‏ @vr00n Nov 11
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      Replying to @vgr

      Why the focus on meatspace grifting and not bitspace grifting? This was a hilarious takedown of a Jugaad Enterprise.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rmvhwwiQAY …

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 11
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      Replying to @vr00n

      Outright scams aren’t grifts. I’m talking about legit services where they make every effort to cheat you.

      5:05 PM - 11 Nov 2020
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      • Varun Adibhatla
      0 replies 0 retweets 1 like

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