Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

nymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 194 posts

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#31

Post by skybrian »

jmcmichael wrote: post #27
cynicalkane wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to add to the above comment. Graeber's lack of integrity and disregard for facts should cast a shadow of mistrust over his other work, not to mention his explosive reaction on being called out for it. If you can't trust someone's writings on facts you know about, why trust them on facts you don't know about? One of the essential things to understand when taking in information is to first understand: is this in…

I’m going to assume that you’re basing your opinion of Graeber on Brad DeLong’s unhinged attacks on his work and character. There are no factual mistakes in “Debt” that impact the solidity of Graeber’s conclusions or historical narratives, most inaccuracies were minor and corrected in subsequent editions without changing the character of the book or the arguments within. Many if not most of DeLong’s attacks of inaccu…

It would be interesting to read a review of Debt by some other economist. I don’t think this can be settled by quoting DeLong or Graeber, considering the bitterness of this feud.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#32

Post by ocschwar »

David Graeber had a wonderful talent for finding innovative and fascinating ways to be wrong about something.

That will always make his writings worth reading and rereading. But before thinking he's right, remember he's guy behind the Occupy movement's rules of order, which is why the meetings took so torturously long. I remain a little irked by it, because a whole cohort of 18 year old activists sat at Occupy meetings before being introduced to Robert's Rules of Order, and some of them are ruined for life by it.

Good guy. Fascinating explorations into ideas. And so, so, wrong.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#33

Post by ocschwar »

agumonkey wrote: post #23

How do people on HN deal with the potential disappearance of work altogether ? physical labour -> boston dynamics office labour -> ~cloud + smartphones (i'm in an office job right now, and it's near zero work, it's full on redundancy, ambiguous and contradictory information, political friction.. any computer could replace the entire building and operate faster 24/7) it's really not a huge stretch to predict 90% of ta…

> How do people on HN deal with the potential disappearance of work altogether ?

Thanks to peak oil and climate change "solving" this problem, I don't really think too much about that prospect.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#34

Post by nyx_land »

agumonkey wrote: post #23

How do people on HN deal with the potential disappearance of work altogether ? physical labour -> boston dynamics office labour -> ~cloud + smartphones (i'm in an office job right now, and it's near zero work, it's full on redundancy, ambiguous and contradictory information, political friction.. any computer could replace the entire building and operate faster 24/7) it's really not a huge stretch to predict 90% of ta…

David Graeber already had an answer to this with his idea of "bullshit jobs", wherein as the labor that is necessary to keep society running is slowly reduced or automated away entirely by technological advancement, more jobs are invented that serve no practical purpose other than to keep people performing the wage labor ritual of selling their time to capitalists (keep in mind Graeber was a left-wing anarchist) in order to justify having access to resources. Even if there's absolutely no basis in reality for people to continue working, people will be made to think that they need to continue working and will be kept under the threat of work or starvation no matter how abundant resources and labor power are unless they simply refuse to continue to do so like we're seeing right now with the Great Resignation, which is essentially just people waking up to the realization that most of the jobs available to people today (especially young people entering the workforce) are bullshit jobs.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#35

Post by cynicalkane »

jmcmichael wrote: post #27
cynicalkane wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to add to the above comment. Graeber's lack of integrity and disregard for facts should cast a shadow of mistrust over his other work, not to mention his explosive reaction on being called out for it. If you can't trust someone's writings on facts you know about, why trust them on facts you don't know about? One of the essential things to understand when taking in information is to first understand: is this in…

I’m going to assume that you’re basing your opinion of Graeber on Brad DeLong’s unhinged attacks on his work and character. There are no factual mistakes in “Debt” that impact the solidity of Graeber’s conclusions or historical narratives, most inaccuracies were minor and corrected in subsequent editions without changing the character of the book or the arguments within. Many if not most of DeLong’s attacks of inaccu…

To name just one of Graeber's essential lies: he makes the claim that Federal Reserve issuing American debt is privately controlled and weaves an extensive chapter based in fundamental ways on this misapprehension. This is a lie that's not "minor" nor "a matter of interpretation" nor unrelated to the "character of the book or arguments within": it's a fundamental misapprehension of the most important debt instrument in modern history (perhaps all history). In a book about debt in history.

I don't really care too much for Graeber's self-important response. If the answer is, yes, Graeber's entitled to say what he wants because people celebrate and have conferences about him, and those who disagree are implied to be beneath him... well, the brazen self-importance is so astonishing that I can't rightly understand how one can agree with that degree of self-importance so directly presented, especially when it comes paired with no actual defense of his statements -- not even a link.

Statements of the form "I'm right because I'm important, and that's all I need to say" are not usually tolerated from almost anyone as a substitute for basic, bare truths. That they are accepted here is not only a comment on the character of Graeber but on the character of his followers.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#36

Post by skybrian »

agumonkey wrote: post #23

How do people on HN deal with the potential disappearance of work altogether ? physical labour -> boston dynamics office labour -> ~cloud + smartphones (i'm in an office job right now, and it's near zero work, it's full on redundancy, ambiguous and contradictory information, political friction.. any computer could replace the entire building and operate faster 24/7) it's really not a huge stretch to predict 90% of ta…

The disappearance of work seems greatly exaggerated. Education and healthcare are a big chunk of the economy and nowhere near automated. Also consider that we’ve been talking about driverless cars for over a decade, and this is something that should be well under way by now, but it’s slow going.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#37

Post by hacksnewer »

paulpauper wrote: post #18

He epitomized, embodied how and what public intellectuals should be, should aspire to: the a willingness to ask hard questions, to challenge conventional preconceived notions. It seems like academia these days is more about maintaining the status quo. If your ideas are engineering debate, it means you're doing your job.

This is a very HN way of looking at academia. The vast majority of academics aren't looking to be "public", they quietly do great work for decades, passing their knowledge down to their students. You don't hear about them because their main job is to educate not bloviate.

Not saying Graber does this, but there are academics (I can think of a Canadian professor) who are very much "public intellectuals" but whose entire career is popular due to controversy. Is that person educating or is he leading a social movement? I guess that's up for debate, but that's hwy people know who he is, not because of great work.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#38

Post by agumonkey »

nyx_land wrote: post #34
agumonkey wrote: post #23

How do people on HN deal with the potential disappearance of work altogether ? physical labour -> boston dynamics office labour -> ~cloud + smartphones (i'm in an office job right now, and it's near zero work, it's full on redundancy, ambiguous and contradictory information, political friction.. any computer could replace the entire building and operate faster 24/7) it's really not a huge stretch to predict 90% of ta…

David Graeber already had an answer to this with his idea of "bullshit jobs", wherein as the labor that is necessary to keep society running is slowly reduced or automated away entirely by technological advancement, more jobs are invented that serve no practical purpose other than to keep people performing the wage labor ritual of selling their time to capitalists (keep in mind Graeber was a left-wing anarchist) in o…

I assumed that his views represented the previous post ww2 world where work, companies, careers were all things to pursue but since this decade I think there's a mismatch as we can indeed see in the great resignation.

Maybe it will push back people to pursue passion, excellency and social bond (I will do things of high value for me and others so we're all happier).

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#39

Post by hacksnewer »

jhbadger wrote: post #26
diego_moita wrote: post #17

Began "The Dawn of Everything" about a week ago, still on chapter 3. Chapter 2 was very, very good. Worth the whole book alone. It begins with by questioning "why did Rousseau wrote about inequality if 100 years before no one in western culture cared about it"? Then he goes to show how the themes of liberty and social equality came from Canadian First Nations criticism of western culture. It is very well argued, soli…

There were plenty of Westerners who were concerned with inequality -- there were numerous failed peasant rebellions throughout Europe ever since the Middle Ages.

Having read too much history for fun and jobs, the comment sounds wrong. You can go back to the Roman republic to find people concerned about this (Gracchi brothers).

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#40

Post by thoughtstheseus »

skybrian wrote: post #31
jmcmichael wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to assume that you’re basing your opinion of Graeber on Brad DeLong’s unhinged attacks on his work and character. There are no factual mistakes in “Debt” that impact the solidity of Graeber’s conclusions or historical narratives, most inaccuracies were minor and corrected in subsequent editions without changing the character of the book or the arguments within. Many if not most of DeLong’s attacks of inaccu…

It would be interesting to read a review of Debt by some other economist. I don’t think this can be settled by quoting DeLong or Graeber, considering the bitterness of this feud.

I work at a large institutional investment firm and have read David’s book. He adds to the conversation around debt in unique and thought provoking ways. For me, that’s what matters about the book.
Post reply on HN