Venkatesh Rao ☀️ Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

Venkatesh Rao ☀️

Probably the most rewarding paper I’ve read in the last 5 years. Epistemic *and* ontological. —— The Game’s Afoot: Predecessors and Pursuits of a Postmodern Detective Novel (in Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction), Kathleen Belin Owen https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Classic-Detective-Fiction-Contributions/dp/0313304629/ https://t.co/uikrzKjDHj

Venkatesh Rao ☀️

@regkith @anandtech That’s ambiguous… Jim read a bunch from various recos/his own finds. I only introduced him to a couple. Chet Richards’ Certain to Win has been very useful in our work together. He introduced me to Inner Game of Tennis, also great.

Venkatesh Rao ☀️

It will be at least as annoying as back when saying “Go for <my-name>” was briefly a popular douchey way to answer the phone. Douchey behaviors constitute a whole evolving personal aesthetic. They’re not just a random set of pet peeves of self-declared non-douchey people.

Venkatesh Rao ☀️

And finally, not by me, but @TaylorPearsonMe wrote one of the best speculative economic futures articles, The Blockchain Man (ref to The Organization Man by William Whyte) on ribbonfarm. https://t.co/L4kmHq5yMc

Venkatesh Rao ☀️

@john_c_palmer Important distinction between 1 in million rare complication vs extremely rare condition. If you have a heart surgery rare complication, you want the surgeon who does 10 a day. But if you get rare disease documented once in 1876, you want a Dr. House. If one exists.

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Venkatesh Rao ☀️

@amaldorai Yes it’s possible… see the section on masks in Keith Johnstone’s Impro

Venkatesh Rao ☀️

First guest talk in Summer of Protocols series: Geoff Manaugh, @bldgblog author of Burglar’s Guide to the City, spoke on Codes of Entry: Burglary, Architecture, and the Protocols of Nakatomi Space https://t.co/9s06X6M9cJ

Venkatesh Rao ☀️

I fully expect that the next Douglas Hofstadter is a 19-year-old currently playing with actual robots and BERT models, not clever thought experiments. They’ll write this generation’s Godel, Escher, Bach bottom up starting with tea-making-butler blooper reels.

Venkatesh Rao ☀️

Not the nice Ursula Le Guin kind, like Annares in The Dispossessed, with beautiful, functional mutualism among responsible adults, but the “hey where do I find this link on this discord” kind 🤣

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Venkatesh Rao ☀️

“Management by X” 1950s: X=Structure (Chandler) 1960s: X= Objectives (Drucker) 1970s: X=Oil Shock (OPEC) 1980s: X= Shareholder Value (Welch) 1990s: X=Value Chain (Porter, Big 3) 2000s: X=Management by Disruption (Christensen) 2010s: X=Management by Digital Transformation (SV)