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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 12 Mar 2018
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      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      Example: aliens land and you go, “why is everyone surprised? It’s a big universe; we’ve seen it in a hundred movies; law of large numbers; Drake equation; blah blah!” If you aren’t surprised if aliens land on earth tomorrow, your surprised circuits have been fried by cynicism.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/973390998800773120 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Deep cynicism combined with narrow intelligence makes it hard to tell your own indifference apart from lack of surprisal in events. “I don’t care about this” —> “why is this surprising?” “I must have expected this since I’m not surprised” —> ‘I’m smarter than the surprised ones”
      3 replies 1 retweet 20 likes
    2. Andre‏ @androgynandre 12 Mar 2018
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      Replying to @vgr

      Are you sure this is "cynicism"? I feel this kind of thing about trump admin buzz, in fact I think I asked @aelkus about the whole harambe dead weird wacky timeline thing and he said it was more therapeutic/performative than actual surprise...

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    3. Andre‏ @androgynandre 12 Mar 2018
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      Replying to @androgynandre @vgr @Aelkus

      gives me the feeling that a lot of public surprisal is really performative and v separate from *actual* surprisal, the emotion. So lack of surprise may not mean broken surprisal circuits at all, just that someone has no reason to signal

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 12 Mar 2018
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      Replying to @androgynandre @Aelkus

      I don’t think it’s easy to hide real surprise. I do think cynicism is one cause (that I have anecdotal evidence of), but there are certain;y others. Depression is another big one. If everything looks like grey, aging shit to you (like Stan in South Park) you can’t be surprised

      8:16 PM - 12 Mar 2018
      • 2 Likes
      • Pringles ⁷ ⟭⟬ Nicholas Frota
      0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes

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