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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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    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      I'm only concerned with big countries here. The problem is, with respect, simply not that big or hard in small countries. So Covid response is meaningfully comparable across say the US, India, China, the EU (to the extent it is a single zone) etc.

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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      Kudos to New Zealand, Taiwan etc. But the lessons I am interested in are mainly US+EU+BRIC. China represents one solution. The state did its One Job. Chinese people have to now decide whether it's worth the other costs of being ruled by the CCP means. I still wouldn't tbh.

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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      The US has failed its One Job. Americans now have to decide whether it's worth giving the state another shot with the next big crisis, or simply accept the costs of being ungoverned (aka, periodic culls and die-offs from a more Darwinian, ungoverned frontier ancap existence)

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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      Despite 284k deaths and Trump, yeah, I'd still choose to live in the US over China. I'll take my chances at securing my own health. As for the choice... , I'm inclined to give the state another shot at getting it right. Unfortunately I don't think most Americans are so inclined.

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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      This is pretty tough for me to admit. I like to think of myself as macro-compassionate and concerned for all life. But here I am admitting I'd rather give a derelict Trump-trashed state another chance on a pile of 284k bodies rather than be ruled by something like the CCP.

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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      But like I said, most people won't be willing to give the state another chance. So choosing to take the vaccine will be partly a referendum on "does the state deserve another chance to get it right" (not perfect, since there's a lot more going into the decision to get vaccinated)

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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      Note that this is NOT a choice between "take the vaccine and risk side effects in order to save 100s of ks of lives" vs. "let people die, I'm healthy enough" It's a choice between "I trust the state to actually get the rest right if I make this pro-social choice to get vaccine"

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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      Like consider you're a healthy young person who thinks your covid risk is not that much higher than your vaccine side-effects risk, but you're pro-social and willing to take the shot anyway. Your real conundrum is: do you trust the state not to fuck everything else up?

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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      We're not talking anti-vaxx crackpot or maga ideologue nut. We're talking a reasonable person. Such a person might think "the initial response disaster was mainly Trump, and if he's out, Biden deserves a chance at getting it right, so I'll take the vaccine"

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    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      But you might ALSO reason, "Trump made it unnecessarily way worse and maybe cost 100k more deaths, but the main failure was the rest of the state apparatus, and I see no difference under Biden, so they'll screw it up again so fuck it, I'm not getting vaccinated"

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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Dec 8
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      I suspect a lot more people are in the second camp. A minority of strongly altruistic people will get vaccinated out of some sense of obligation to help first responders and doctors and other suffering types. But many will be like... "I'll wait and see."

      11:48 AM - 8 Dec 2020
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        1. Troy Winfrey‏ @twinfrey Dec 8
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          Phew. This is a megathread, but the problem is that Trump was a chunk of sh!t in the sandwich, spoiling the whole. The problem is not with the structure of the sandwich, apart from the fact that it had this unexpected vulnerability. It's that one chunk of sh!t spoils the sandwich

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        1. Troy Winfrey‏ @twinfrey Dec 8
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          The problem here is that government runs on the assumption that you will govern. If not--if you're about looting the treasury--it falls apart. Normally we screen those guys out, fairly well overall. Even Dubya wanted to govern. Trump literally ignored the entire problem.

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        1. Troy Winfrey‏ @twinfrey Dec 8
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          I mean, is the corporation in an existential crisis because there have been so many examples of bad CEOs? Whereas we really have ONE example of a President who didn't want to govern? Also, historically ppl didn't want to mask in 18, or blackout during WWII. They were compelled.

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        2. Gabriel Pettier Ⓥ‏ @tshirtman Dec 8
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          I might have missed a step, but i can't find where, i don't see how getting the vaccine implies trusting the government to get everything else right (or at least not as catastrophically bad), I understand taking the vaccine requires *some* trust to the process that produced it.

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        3. Gabriel Pettier Ⓥ‏ @tshirtman Dec 8
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          Replying to @tshirtman @vgr

          Also, apropos software eating the world, where do you think Allende's "cybernetic socialism" would have been on your proposed dichotomy? Thanks for the though provoking thread.

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        4. End of conversation

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