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@vihaan

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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
The “old world” up to say 1000 AD was really a machine with 7 interlocking parts of approximately comparable size. But the interesting thing with this polar view is, it becomes clear why the steppe nomads were the connective tissue. They’re the hub region. Able to easily invade the 4 big civ cores nearby easily (China, India, near east, Eastern Europe). India was the best protected due to Himalayas.This really should be the map with which pre-1300 world history should be taught. North Africa looks interestingly marginal here, but due to the prehistoric migration out of East Africa it kinda has cantillon-effect explanatory importance. The rest of the world didn’t really get properly integrated till much later. SE Asia and NE Asia were weakly attached, Siberia was even more weakly attached. Arabia is basically hot Siberia. Funny they both have oil.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I guess this will become known as the assassin backpack https://www.peakdesign.com/products/everyday-backpack-zip
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
For a lot of genres I think tv/movies are routinely superior to books if done well. For many people it is such an article of snobby faith that the book is always better that they never even pause to consider this seriously. I think the screen medium matured with the James Bond franchise, which was the first to be generally better than the books. Same with Alistair MacLean books. You really have to fuck up to make an action story worse on screen. Other examples: Harry Potter, the David Suchet Poirots (most of them), LOTR, Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes (except last few seasons when he was ill). Controversial example: Foundation The genre which does really badly on screen is textual humor. Fry/Laurie came closest but P. G. Wodehouse has never quite been done well. Nobody has cracked HHG or Dirk Gently though it started out as a Doctor Who script idea and radio performance.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Old bird https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86w9n4jlvwo
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
All the good detective shows now have female leads. Elsbeth, High Potential, Poker Face. Is this a thing now? 🤔
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dopaminefix
@vihaan
“All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system.” https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
7000 word deep dive into the history and structure of American libertarianism and also useful case study of competing histories of trying to drive political change. Which I actually read. Now I feel educated. There’s lessons here for how crypto and protocols can try to influence the world. https://open.substack.com/pub/statesofexception/p/murray-rothbard-as-low-human-capital
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@vihaan
Are you a philosopher-psychologist pretending to be an architect ? I read your other blog about immortality post 40 and one post where you suggested not to Proust the heck out of the data in your life beyond a point. All good advice
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I don't think of this as a "people" trait. Everybody has some works where they think differently. Anyone who consistently looks like they think differently probably has a formula you haven't grokked yet. That said, Benjamin Labatut, George Dyson among trad book authors have impressed me with their different thinking
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@vihaan
What was the last such book if I may ask ?
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️ pfp
Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
My bedtime reading the last week has been Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia. Good read though a little heavy for bedtime. Similar to the last economics book I read, Edmund Phelps’ Mass Flourrishing.
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@vihaan
https://sameers.substack.com/p/garden-flies-hanging-in-the-air
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@vihaan
https://sameers.substack.com/p/gratitude
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@vihaan
In the middle of a break right now. With wife working but one son about to enter middle school. Few months in. Perhaps next month will start looking
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@vihaan
About the process of writing: https://sameers.substack.com/p/haptic-feedback
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@vihaan
Probably also (primarily) got to do with how easy these things are in terms of effort required, no ? ( P.S. I'm only here coz you're not tweeting anymore )
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@vihaan
detached self-discovery
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