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Paul Graham's Social Essay

Paul Graham's Social Essay https://t.co/qXzTa402R2 @paulg @sacca @skg_accel @NavinChaddha @promodhaque @NeerajVC @mamoonha @RonConway

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) January 9, 2016

The Refragmentation by Paul Graham

Though strictly speaking World War II lasted less than 4 years for the US, its effects lasted longer. Wars make central governments more powerful, and World War II was an extreme case of this. In the US, as in all the other Allied countries, the federal government was slow to give up the new powers it had acquired. Indeed, in some respects the war didn't end in 1945; the enemy just switched to the Soviet Union. In tax rates, federal power, defense spending, conscription, and nationalism the decades after the war looked more like wartime than prewar peacetime. [3] And the social effects lasted too. The kid pulled into the army from behind a mule team in West Virginia didn't simply go back to the farm afterward. Something else was waiting for him, something that looked a lot like the army. ....... John D. Rockefeller said in 1880..... The day of combination is here to stay. Individualism has gone, never to return..... He turned out to be mistaken, but he seemed right for the next hundred years............. What happens now with the Super Bowl used to happen every night. We were literally in sync. ........ In his autobiography, Robert MacNeil talks of seeing gruesome images that had just come in from Vietnam and thinking, we can't show these to families while they're having dinner. ......... the "red delicious" apples that were red but only nominally apples. And in retrospect, it was crap. .........

For most of the 20th century, working-class people tried hard to look middle class. You can see it in old photos. Few adults aspired to look dangerous in 1950.

........ But the rise of national corporations didn't just compress us culturally. It compressed us economically too, and on both ends. ........ Along with giant national corporations, we got giant national labor unions. And in the mid 20th century the corporations cut deals with the unions where they paid over market price for labor. Partly because the unions were monopolies. ......... Much of the de facto pay of executives never showed up on their income tax returns, because it took the form of perks. ....... The ultimate way to get market price is to work for yourself, by starting your own company. That seems obvious to any ambitious person now. But in the mid 20th century it was an alien concept. ........ in the mid 20th century. Starting one's own business meant starting a business that would start small and stay small. Which in those days of big companies often meant scurrying around trying to avoid being trampled by elephants. It was more prestigious to be one of the executive class riding the elephant. ......... in the 20th century there were more and more college graduates. They increased from about 2% of the population in 1900 to about 25% in 2000 ........ people in the 1950s and 60s had been even more conformist than us ...... What J. P. Morgan was to the horizontal axis, Henry Ford was to the vertical. He wanted to do everything himself. ....... if you want to solve a problem using a network of cooperating companies, you have to be able to coordinate their efforts, and you can do that much better with computers. Computers reduce the transaction costs that Coase argued are the raison d'etre of corporations. That is a fundamental change. .......... IBM itself ended up being supplanted by a supplier coming in from the side—from software, which didn't even seem to be the same business. .........

Basically, Apple bumped IBM and then Microsoft stole its wallet. That sort of thing did not happen to big companies in mid-century. But it was going to happen increasingly often in the future.

......... This didn't seem as dubious to government officials at the time as it sounds to us. They felt a two-party system ensured sufficient competition in politics. It ought to work for business too. ...... The word used for this process was misleadingly narrow: deregulation. What was really happening was de-oligopolization. It happened to one industry after another. Two of the most visible to consumers were air travel and long-distance phone service, which both became dramatically cheaper after deregulation. ........

The companies in the S&P 500 in 1958 had been there an average of 61 years. By 2012 that number was 18 years.

......... the refragmentation was driven by computers in the way the industrial revolution was driven by steam engines. ........ The new fluidity of companies changed people's relationships with their employers. Why climb a corporate ladder that might be yanked out from under you? Ambitious people started to think of a career less as climbing a single ladder than as a series of jobs that might be at different companies. More movement (or even potential movement) between companies introduced more competition in salaries. Plus as companies became smaller it became easier to estimate how much an employee contributed to the company's revenue. Both changes drove salaries toward market price. And since people vary dramatically in productivity, paying market price meant salaries started to diverge. ........ Yuppies were young professionals who made lots of money. To someone in their twenties today, this wouldn't seem worth naming. Why wouldn't young professionals make lots of money? But until the 1980s being underpaid early in your career was part of what it meant to be a professional. ....... Almost four decades later, fragmentation is still increasing. ......... With the centripetal forces of total war and 20th century oligopoly mostly gone, what will happen next? ........

The form of fragmentation people worry most about lately is economic inequality, and if you want to eliminate that you're up against a truly formidable headwind—one that has been in operation since the stone age: technology. Technology is a lever. It magnifies work. And the lever not only grows increasingly long, but the rate at which it grows is itself increasing.

......... The ambitious had little choice but to join large organizations that made them march in step with lots of other people—literally in the case of the armed forces, figuratively in the case of big corporations. ......... as long as it's possible to get rich by creating wealth, the default tendency will be for economic inequality to increase. Even if you eliminate all the other ways to get rich. You can mitigate this with subsidies at the bottom and taxes at the top, but unless taxes are high enough to discourage people from creating wealth, you're always going to be fighting a losing battle against increasing variation in productivity. ......... When Rockefeller said individualism was gone, he was right for a hundred years. It's back now, and that's likely to be true for longer....... The first big company CEOs were J. P. Morgan's hired hands ........ "Our founder" meant a photograph of a severe-looking man with a walrus mustache and a wing collar who had died decades ago. The thing to be when I was a kid was an executive. If you weren't around then it's hard to grasp the cachet that term had. The fancy version of everything was called the "executive" model. ....... it is certainly not impossible for a CEO to make 200x as much difference to a company's revenues as the average employee. Look at what Steve Jobs did for Apple when he came back as CEO. It would have been a good deal for the board to give him 95% of the company. Apple's market cap the day Steve came back in July 1997 was 1.73 billion. 5% of Apple now (January 2016) would be worth about 30 billion. And it would not be if Steve hadn't come back; Apple probably wouldn't even exist anymore. ......... Google will pay people millions of dollars a year to keep them from leaving to start or join startups.

If computers have brought about so much disruption, imagine what artificial intelligence will do, and at what speed! I just hope we get to the age of abundance fast and end up in an era of no poverty, no disease. As to the massive surpluses, I am less worried about the rich. But even there social and political innovation can happen. You can't get rich unless a lot of people can buy what you are selling. Political innovation is not happening as fast as technological innovation. And that is bad news. It does not have to be. Tech itself is partly to blame. There has not been enough direct technological innovation applied to the political sphere itself. Technology has the option to give us truly participatory democracy, but it has not done it. Technology has the option to give us rich, robust, grassroots discussions. It has not done it. The impending age of abundance means everyone can eat, there is no overpopulation, but it will not happen on its own. I think where Paul Graham falls short is in not being able to see that maybe political innovation will also happen. Unless the purchasing power of the masses goes up exponentially, we can not create the truly super rich, and we will not be a multi-planetary species. In the age of abundance, there should be a floor beneath which no human being falls. And that floor keeps rising because productivity keeps going up, and rather fast.

This essay is remarkable social and political (and economic) insight by a dude only known for tech startups.

I happen to think we have to start by creating a world government. For one, we have an existential reason to do so. There is no other way to coordinate the fight with Climate Change. And other good things follow. Only one person one vote taken to its logical, global conclusion will give us the kind of political innovation we need. Right now the political systems of the world simply do not create enough pressure. The only reason Google floats is because enough people click on its ads. Right now nobody is voting at the global level. A head of state is only one person.

Barack Obama: FDR, Lincoln And Washington

Maybe Paul Graham should put some of his Dropbox money into my Kickstarter campaign. It's only 60K. I intend to disrupt global group dynamics.

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Please fund my project https://t.co/QeYB3hBQuy #augmentedreality @RickKing16 @StasBorecky @fjbering @vonmelchior @Saga_Paul @Digarbeit

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) January 8, 2016

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Paul Graham's Social Essay https://t.co/qXzTa402R2 @peterthiel @aneelb @venkyganesan @djparekh @satishd @chandna @salil @shervin @pmarca

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) January 9, 2016

Stay Tuned for the Technological Transformation of Governance

Just as early waves of technological innovation in education and health care simply attempted to digitize old practices — putting an analog class into a MOOC or a patient’s file into the cloud — early forays into governmental technology involved bringing civil services online and enabling citizens to follow government protocols on websites instead of in buildings. .....

new governance technologies preparing to reroute lines of authority and change what it means to be a citizen in the 21st century.

....... Others are helping teams to build consensus and budget together, dynamically and elegantly. Still others are creating operating systems for political parties that are already winning seats in government. .....

Whether we're facing climate apocalypse on Earth or colonizing Mars, the deciding factor between human civilization being extractive and oppressive, or cooperative and generative, will be how much we as a species have practiced the skills of equitable collaboration on a day-to-day basis — hearing diverse viewpoints and synthesizing them, consciously understanding the flows of power dynamics, and designing in the key factors of human wellness.

......... Human beings have been sitting in circles listening to one another for millennia, but software and the internet allow us to scale up these practices in a way we never have before. ....... Cobudget for funding and Loomio for decision-making. ........ Many of the worst aspects of command-and-control, mechanistic, hierarchical governance are consequences of limited communications technologies. If we can make distributed cooperation just as efficient, the need for those old governance forms — which cause a lot of human suffering in the name of efficiency — could be obviated. ..... The key difference is: are you privatizing everything, or are you building the commons? The real distinguishing factor isn't the governing practices, which may be similar to a point, but the governing purpose. Are we building in service of the people and the community, deeply rooted in social values and human rights, or are we in service of private interests, which only answer to their own internal logic of profit and power? ....... Already, in our network, Enspiral, where we run businesses in service of positive social outcomes, we constantly have to 'hack' company structures to make them reflect how we actually want to work. We're sticking to the law, of course, but there's some legal gymnastics involved and we're constantly having to blaze a trail. Are we a community? A company? A charity? None of the current forms actually quite fit, and the distinctions seem contrived. ........ One of the protections against government corruption in democracies is that the moment of the vote is hidden and blind. ......

the very idea that our key moment of agency as a citizen is ticking a box every three or four years is the insane part

..... Our 'democratic' system is another example of something developed a couple hundred years ago because of very limited communications technology — election dates in the US are still determined by how long it took people to go on horseback between cities. ..... What's actually incredible is when you create a society where people not only feel safe being open about their political opinions, but they genuinely discuss them with different people, and their opinion can evolve through that interaction — they can change their minds.

When citizen deliberation is possible, that's when truly amazing solutions can emerge, from synthesizing different views.

......... What can users of SMS-enabled mobile banking in Africa teach us about how our apps could work? People in warzones and disaster areas know a ton about decentralized networks, because centralised infrastructure fails them. Activists threatened by oppressive governments have heaps to teach us about privacy, identity, and leveraging online communications tools for effective action and resistance. ....... most people in this space are running completely analog processes using technologies like neighborhood meetings and science-fair like exhibitions of citizen-generated ideas. They are willing to pound the pavement.

Hello

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Hello

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Hello

The Bourne Resurrection

Matt Damon at a presentation for The Bourne Ultimatum in Mexico (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

@UniversalPics I have a story for Bourne 5 that I would like to flesh out.
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) September 16, 2014

@UniversalPics The Bourne Resurrection http://t.co/XqZPhE6js2
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) September 16, 2014

"I've always been open to it if Paul Greengrass is the director," Damon said to CNBC in May of this year. "We've just never been able to come up with a story. So, if any of your viewers have a story, please call Universal and submit it."

Matt Damon Will Probably Play Jason Bourne Again After All

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Selfie

1-7

Brazil’s Cup
Neymar Injury
Brazil All The Way
My July 4th Weekend Plans: World Cup Soccer
FIFA Retweeted Me, Twice

This was not Brazil versus Germany. This was Brazil versus FIFA and FIFA lost. Big.

Updated #WorldCup predictions: Brazil 54% Argentina 20% Germany 14% Netherlands 13% http://t.co/vJ6Icj32qv pic.twitter.com/EiewsydWVD
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) July 7, 2014

FIFA takes no action over challenge on Neymar http://t.co/0rsDZywtIW
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

I'm at NY Chevillo-tte (NY) w/ 2 others https://t.co/PrSEmeL1A7 pic.twitter.com/zEfYnMIryc
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

Brazil Germany, two legendary teams. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

Missing Neymar already. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

Brazil playing like a 10 person team. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

Brazil, an injured lion, limping around. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

Painful to watch. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

The Brazilian team is protesting a grave injustice. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

FIFA has wronged Neymar and the game. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

A nation and a team and a world grieves for Neymar. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

Brazil hasn't allowed 5 goals in each of the last 3 World Cups, for the entire tournament! 5 in a half today is shocking. #GER #WorldCup
— Chris Althoff (@althoff30) July 8, 2014

I don't know whether to show my affection and loyalty to Brazil by watching, or by not watching... #WorldCup
— Elizabeth Gilbert (@GilbertLiz) July 8, 2014

If @FIFAcom had balls Juan Zuniga would of been suspended FOR LIFE!!!!!! that was a career threatening challenge #WorldCup #WorldCup2014
— The G.F. Liverpool™© (@gliverpool9966) July 8, 2014

Last time Brazil gave up 5 goals IN AN ENTIRE #worldcup was 1998. They've given up 5 before halftime today. #failingwithflair
— Adam Perry (@noooodbtaboutit) July 8, 2014

The biggest ever WC semi final loss is 6-1. Could even more records be broken tonight? #WorldCup
— FansAllStar Football (@FASfootball) July 8, 2014

I mean..... RT @mashable This crying #Brazil fan sums up the state of the match so far http://t.co/gPpKmOoLt2 #WorldCup
— Nicholas Graham (@NickGraham) July 8, 2014

#WorldCup The last time Brazil conceded five goals at home was 75 years ago in 1939 vs Argentina #BrazilvsGermany http://t.co/CTt7Bvkr9S
— NDTV Sports (@Sports_NDTV) July 8, 2014

This is the third time a team lead by 5+ at halftime of a #WorldCup match and the first time since 1974. #BRAvsGER (via @ESPNStatsInfo)
— FirstpostSports (@FirstpostSports) July 8, 2014

#worldcup This has not been a real game.
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

#worldcup FIFA, a travesty.
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

#worldcup This is a big Fuck You from the Brazilian team to FIFA.
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

#worldcup I am growing back my hair. #brazillost
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

Guys, let's be respectful and not tweet the score of the game to Neymar. He's DVRing and gonna watch later. #nospoilers #worldcup
— The Sklar Brothers (@SklarBrothers) July 8, 2014

Germany pulled off an MQM today. 20 minute mein BANDD! #WorldCup
— Memeabad (@Memeabad) July 8, 2014

Statistically speaking Germany and Brazil should have been much more evenly matched: http://t.co/mTEp1sd9lZ #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/8Izia1rtcY
— Financial Times (@FT) July 8, 2014

I commend Brazil's defense for going on strike to protest FIFA corruption and social injustice in Brazil. #WorldCup
— William Lafi Youmans (@wyoumans) July 8, 2014

179 seconds between #GER's second and fourth goal. Germany are Kroosing (via @chrisboygreen) #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/idj5Tfgtb2
— BBC Radio 5 live (@bbc5live) July 8, 2014

#WorldCup it's crazy how when 2 of Brazil's best players aren't there, the whole game changes
— Cynthia (@casterlouis) July 8, 2014

29 minutes is the earliest in a #WorldCup game that any team has ever scored five goals.
— Paul Carr (@PCarrESPN) July 8, 2014

Heat map Germany v Brazil #BRAvsGER #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/dpPddrVDTP
— ARSENAL FANZONE (@AFCfamily1886) July 8, 2014

Yugoslavia 9-0 #WorldCup record against Zaire (DR.Congo) seems to be under threats #BRAGER
— Francois Tshimpuki (@FrankosMoneyMan) July 8, 2014

Only 16% of Germans predicted their country would win #WorldCup -- and 29% said Brazil would. http://t.co/ePt8yQ5twv
— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) July 8, 2014

VIDEO: All 5 of Germany's goals that took place less than 30' into the #WorldCup semifinal vs. Brazil http://t.co/YnhnNr2U4y
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 8, 2014

"Don't mention the score"#BRA #WorldCup
— Amanda (@Pandamoanimum) July 8, 2014

I thought I was watching highlights for a second .... #WorldCup
— Alex galchenyuk (@AGally94) July 8, 2014

Never seen a #WorldCup game like this #GERBRA
— Jeff Kurzon (@JeffKurzon) July 8, 2014

I'm at Ryan Maguire's Ale House (New York, NY) w/ 2 others http://t.co/7mMVZgtL6f pic.twitter.com/Xf5EgUgS5v
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 8, 2014

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Brazil All The Way

Brazil star Neymar out of the World Cup with fractured vertebrae

Brazil's team doctor says Neymar will miss the rest of the World Cup after breaking a vertebrae during the team's quarterfinal win over Colombia...... Neymar was kneed in the back by Colombia defender Juan Camilo Zuniga in the second half of Brazil's 2-1 win, and was in tears when he was carried off the field on a stretcher...... He was taken to a local clinic and team doctor Rodrigo Lasmar said after the match that the star striker had broken his third vertebrae...... Neymar is the Brazil's biggest star and has scored four goals for the team so far in the tournament..... Brazil plays Germany in the semifinals on Tuesday.

Brazil advances to World Cup semifinals with 2-1 win over Colombia

Brazil dominated in virtually every statistical category, especially possession, controlling the ball nearly 60% of the time. Despite that, Colombia appeared to have tied the score in the 67th minute when Mario Yepes scored after a wild scramble in front of the net....... But the goal was waved off by an offside call. And moments later Luiz made it 2-0 -- a score that proved important when Colombia finally got on the scoreboard with a penalty kick in the 80th minute. Not surprisingly the goal came from James Rodriguez, who leads this World Cup with six scores........ The victory might yet prove to be a costly one, though, since Neymar, Brazil's star playmaker, left the field with a back injury in the 88th minute.

World Cup 2014: Brazil Beats Colombia in Quarterfinal

Streets across the country cleared out when Brazil played, but they nevertheless filled with invisible noise that streamed from restaurants and homes. Fireworks sizzled in every major city to announce every goal, every win. And after the games, the music was turned all the way up again....... The party continued, even louder, on Friday night. Showing its most spirited performance yet in this quarterfinal game, Brazil dispatched an upstart Colombia team, 2-1, in front of a deafening sellout crowd at Estadio Castelao....... The team this summer has only ever had one goal: to win its sixth World Cup trophy in front of its home fans. The next step will come Tuesday, when Brazil faces Germany in a mouthwatering semifinal matchup...... After Brazil squeezed past Chile in the Round of 16 last week, emerging from that game only after enduring a nail-biting penalty shootout, several players collapsed to the grass in tears. Whether it was acceptable for the players to cry so much became a matter of public discourse here. .... Colombia had become the darlings of the tournament while playing an upbeat brand of fast-passing soccer, scoring copious goals and celebrating them with unbalanced joy. If Brazil was the team with everything at stake, Colombia seemed like the team with nothing to lose.

World Cup: Brazil: Still Wobbling, Still Winning

In the space of 10 anxious minutes on Friday, the Brazilian fans inside the Estádio Castelão watched the beginnings of a nightmare unfold...... Colombia pulled within a goal. Then Neymar was stretchered off with a back injury. If the Seleção was going to throw away a two-goal lead and this quarterfinal, this is how it would unravel...... Goalkeeper Julio Cesar, the hero of the round of 16 ..... For its first trip back to the final four in 12 years, Brazil will face Germany on Tuesday in Belo Horizonte after Die Nationalmannschaft's 1-0 victory over France. It will be their first World Cup meeting since the 2002 final, when Brazil sealed its fifth World Cup title. And ever since then, the sixth has been a national obsession. ..... All isn't perfect. If Brazil is to punch its ticket to the final at the Maracanã on July 13, it will have to do it without Silva, the team's captain, who will miss the semi because of accumulated yellow cards. And Neymar's status for the next game, after a knee to the back, wasn't immediately clear. ..... In a week that the mental health of the Brazilian players became a matter of national concern, it wasn't their brains that fans should have been worried about. It was their hearts and lungs and legs. Inside the throbbing Estádio Castelão, the two sides produced the most frantic half-hour of the World Cup. If Germany-France was a controlled exercise in tactical efficiency, this was a pickup game on fast-forward. ..... The Seleção played physical soccer, clobbering Colombia's playmakers when it needed to, and broke with powerful runners all over the field. ...... Colombia's Rodriguez, one of the lights of the tournament, had the space to carry the ball for one solo run of nearly 40 yards—but only once. The rest of the time, Fernandinho and his midfield cohorts used any means necessary to close him down. Rodriguez, 22, wouldn't worry Brazil again until late. ..... Goalkeeper David Ospina strung together enough saves to keep Colombia in the game for a few mad breaks of its own. In the first breathless 30 minutes alone, the teams combined for 27 so-called dangerous attacks, according to FIFA statistics. .... But the only trace of them on the scoreboard at halftime was Silva's seventh-minute goal. Neymar curled in a corner kick from the left that eluded both sides as it shot through the box, until it hit Silva. Unmarked at the far post, he knocked it in with his knee to push the already-deafening noise inside the stadium to something like a space-shuttle launch....... Make no mistake, Brazil remains a flawed team. The side doesn't have a forward who can keep up with the invention of Neymar—Fred, Hulk and Jo have hardly captured the imagination at this tournament. And the defense is shaky. Its calamitous handling of a second-half free kick, which wound up with Colombia putting the ball in the net, was only absolved by the an offside call......Brazil flirted with elimination before the quarterfinals. Chile was inches from knocking out the Seleção in extra time with a shot against the crossbar....... The tears several players shed before that shootout were the trigger for the national conversation about the Seleção's mental strength. As the nation wondered whether its team could cope with the weight of 200 million fans, Scolari found himself defending everything from Silva's captaincy to his use of a sports psychologist...... There were plenty more tears after the final whistle on Friday, too. But once more, Brazil had held its nerve.

Brazil, Germany set up semifinal at World Cup

Brazil-Colombia didn’t quite live up to its pre-match billing as a battle of two brilliant goal-scoring young talents — Rodriguez and Brazil’s Neymar. ..... Rodriguez put Colombia on the score-sheet and made the last 15 minutes very uncomfortable for Brazil with a coolly-taken penalty that took his tournament-leading tally of goals to six. ..... Incredibly for two powerhouse teams that have won eight World Cups between them, the Germany-Brazil semifinal next Tuesday in Belo Horizonte will be just the second time the two nations have met at the showcase tournament. Brazil won the first meeting: 2-0 in the World Cup final of 2002. ..... Brazil will be without Silva, its captain, against Germany after he picked up his second yellow card of the tournament for a foolish foul on Colombian goalkeeper David Ospina. Brazil also has injury worries with Neymar, who was stretchered off after Juan Zuniga kneed him in the back.

10,000 Colombians in the house! (@ NY Chevillo-tte) https://t.co/aeD54sz65V pic.twitter.com/WPrTtRkNqY
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

10,000 Colombians in the house. I am rooting for Brazil but am quiet about it! #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

Brazil! #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

Such an exciting game! #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

Brazil : total domination. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

Messi deserves a cup but Brazil is the more exciting team. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

I wish I had seen some of these moves before I started my high school soccer career! #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

What a game! What a m____g game! #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

The Brazilian team is liquid. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

These dudes Foot game (Skills) from Brazil is Off The Charts!! #WorldCup
— Mark Jackson (@MarkJackson13) July 4, 2014

My highest praise: The Brazilians are playing like Brazilians. It's gorgeous to see... #BRAvaCOL #WorldCup
— Elizabeth Gilbert (@GilbertLiz) July 4, 2014

This is one of the fiercest starts I've ever seen to match. #BRAvsCOL #WorldCup
— Greg Rucka (@ruckawriter) July 4, 2014

Dear the French & German football teams. Please watch #BRAvsCOL on @ITV now. THIS is how to play #WorldCup quarter-final. You're Welcome
— ITV (@ITV) July 4, 2014

Brazzzzzzzzilllllllllll ⚽️ #worldcup pic.twitter.com/nSjL3nhjUS
— Pascal Craymer (@PascalCraymer) July 4, 2014

Neymar is so fast, he can almost pass to himself.#BRAvaCOL #WorldCup
— Elizabeth Gilbert (@GilbertLiz) July 4, 2014

The #WorldCup has been amazing, the skill these players possess in their feet is more than most of us hv n our hands!! "Cont...
— Matt Barnes (@Matt_Barnes22) July 4, 2014

#worldcup Neymar = Deadly free kicks. #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

#worldcup Hulk #brazil moves like a bulldozer.
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

#worldcup 100,000 Colombians in the house! #worldcup
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

#worldcup Jamez crying made my eyes wet.
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

#worldcup Brazil shall crush Germany.
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

#worldcup Oh, the peaceful taking of pictures.
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) July 4, 2014

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