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David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

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Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#41

Post by JasonCannon »

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…

All Anarchists are left wing. AnCaps aren't anarchists. Anarchism is inherently socialist.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#42

Post by Robotbeat »

culi wrote: post #9
marnett wrote: post #6

Thanks for sharing this. Graeber’s name came up many times during a recent a deep dive on ancient Mesoamerican societies. I had seen his new book The Dawn of Everything as well as an older text, Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, and was eager to pick them up. I was unaware he had passed, however. Nearly all of his previous topics of research and publishing were of interest to me; it is a shame to realize thi…

What a way to go to. The book, cowritten with archeologist David Wengrow, ties together so many different developments within archeology and anthropology that are driving some major paradigm shifts. These massively important paradigm shifts have mostly been confined to academia so far and I don't there's been such a broad attempt to tie them altogether like this. Especially not one geared towards the public This book…

Can you summarize three of these paradigm shifts?

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#43

Post by Robotbeat »

hacksnewer wrote: post #39
jhbadger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Or the Book of James about 2000 years ago (in the Roman Empire).

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#44

Post by JasonCannon »

orthecreedence wrote: post #4
ncmncm wrote: post #2

My pre-ordered copy of "The Dawn of Humanity", hot off the press, just arrived yesterday, from Bookshop.org, right on schedule. I am preparing to experience all my cherished preconceptions exploding.

I'm ashamed to admit I've never actually read any of Graeber's books, even though I'm fairly anarchist-leaning. I really need to change that. I didn't even know that he finished another one before he died, so I guess I'll have to add that to my list as well.

I recommend Debt the first 5000 years as well as The Democracy Project. Both of which were absolutely fascinating to me. Solidarity forever and rest in power Graeber.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#45

Post by Robotbeat »

Interesting. Makes me want to actually read Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens. I watched the GG&S documentary & enjoyed it, but I should read the book.

What single book of Graeber should I read that has his most important ideas? Is it this one?

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#46

Post by Robotbeat »

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…

I think we should do UBI. Child Tax Credit is essentially a pro-natalist UBI. I think, however, that there’s plenty of worthwhile work to do.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#47

Post by SaberTail »

Robotbeat wrote: post #45

Interesting. Makes me want to actually read Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens. I watched the GG&S documentary & enjoyed it, but I should read the book. What single book of Graeber should I read that has his most important ideas? Is it this one?

I'd recommend Debt. It made me rethink a lot of what I "knew" about money and economics.

Bullshit Jobs is also interesting, but it's a much lighter, much more "pop" book.

I haven't read this one yet to know if it's on the same level as Debt, but the reviews so far have suggested it is.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#48

Post by aspenmayer »

JasonCannon wrote: post #41
nyx_land wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

All Anarchists are left wing. AnCaps aren't anarchists. Anarchism is inherently socialist.

Why do AnCaps present themselves as anarchist? Is it a name recognition marketing strategy? Are they themselves mistaken, or are they trying to convince others of them being anarchist?

I see this a lot, where ancaps present themselves as anarchist, and believe that they are left wing, but when asked are shown to be ancaps by their answers. I don’t know what the endgame is in these conversations, for them or for me, as I’m mostly asking exploratory questions and have no agenda in asking per se.

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#49

Post by TaylorAlexander »

andrepd wrote: post #22
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s got a lot of great talks and other appearances on YouTube. I don’t read much but I listen to stuff like this on Bluetooth headphones while I clean the house and do other physical work. Often instead of reading an authors book I will listen to them give the same book talk at three different venues. I don’t claim it’s as good as reading the book but compared to buying the book and watching it collect dust on my sh…

Aha, I see I'm not the only one who listens to talks while doing housework or working out. I've been on a Varoufakis binge for a while, perhaps I'll check Graber now ;)

Yah and if you like those two also check out Jason Hickel and Vijay Prashad[1].

[1] For example this one is great: https://youtu.be/M-frUMXKcEw

Re: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds

#50

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

cynicalkane wrote: post #35
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…

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…

> To name just one of Graeber's essential lies: he makes the claim that Federal Reserve issuing American debt is privately controlled

From a short piece of writing from the St. Louis Fed itself, linked to in another comment below:

>The Federal Reserve Banks are not a part of the federal government, but they exist because of an act of Congress.

Now, we could quote the next few lines too, for a bit more context:

> So is the Fed private or public? The answer is both. While the Board of Governors is an independent government agency, the Federal Reserve Banks are set up like private corporations.

Clearly, it's a rather unique institution that makes arguments that it is privately controlled or not rather harder to resolve.

But that also means that this is not "an essential lie" by Graeber. He has elided some of the complexity in favor of what he sees as a more important truth, without saying something that it categorically false.

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