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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 5 May 2018
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      • Report NetzDG Violation

      When attention is very scarce, and you have some discretionary ability to boost signals, any act of public curiosity becomes a political act. Whatever the content of your opinion on X, simply being publicly curious about X (minimum=liking a tweet) sends a message.

      5 replies 20 retweets 84 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 5 May 2018
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      I suspect one reason @robinhanson drew fire for broaching sex redistribution is simply because as a signal booster he diverted scarce public attention to that topic. The actual opinion matters less than the act of putting that topic in the public short-term magic 7±2 meme buffer

      3 replies 2 retweets 32 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 5 May 2018
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      Boosting the topic says “the needs/motives/desires of this group X are worth more attention than those of every other group I’m not signal-boosting.” I suspect it would be useful for public figures to preface displays of public curiosity with justification of importance.

      2 replies 1 retweet 11 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 5 May 2018
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      Unlike private curiosity, public curiosity of thought leaders deploys more than their own attention. It’s a public attention allocation decision. When you tweet or RT something, you’re deploying num_followers*clickbaitness*avg_time attention, Like national park hygiene norms.

      2 replies 1 retweet 27 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 5 May 2018
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      In an attention scarcity (or information overload) environment people are desperate for meta-signals on what to pay attention to. Hell, there’s even a @pmarcaslikes account that RTs things @pmarca likes. That’s how starved the information economy is for quality meta-signals.

      4:49 PM - 5 May 2018
      • 3 Retweets
      • 28 Likes
      • God rudy cloudman Nick Nikolov Josh Mize Dan listens to the world changing Santi Andre simpolism MOURNING CROW PUNISHER Derek
      2 replies 3 retweets 28 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 5 May 2018
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          The “fiat news” concept from @Aelkus is useful here. It’s a billion channel universe and you have some ability to mint fiat news whether you are aware of it or not, so be mindful what you boost.

          1 reply 3 retweets 20 likes
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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 5 May 2018
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          I have always tended to self-censor public curiosity to things I think will harmoniously interest others in that space. This is from before I had any sort of platform. I suspect this is a basic personality trait. I just don’t like making a scene. I take all conflict offline.

          0 replies 0 retweets 20 likes
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        4. End of conversation
        1. John Backus‏ @backus 5 May 2018
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          Replying to @vgr @pmarcaslikes @pmarca

          Agree! Best Twitter users have signal and meta-signal. Meta-signal attracts signal: if user (like @pmarca before he went dark) regularly RTs quality, people try to put signal in front of them in hope for a boost. Can be a virtuous cycle for enhancing booster's meta-signal.

          0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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