22 ms·
After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)
- gjvc 5y ago> "Before he tragically died at the untimely age of fifty-one" That should be fifty-nine.
- q-base 5y agoI had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read.
- mellosouls 5y agoHis last book was discussed here the other day fwiw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28908960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28908960 His passing also discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24365811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24365811
- q-base 5y agoOh thank you SO much! I had missed all of that as well. There is a certain item for my wish list for Christmas. Really appreciate it.
- sleepysysadmin 5y ago>I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read. Which one might I ask? Bullshit jobs is pretty big, but debt: the first 5000 years is quite good.
- q-base 5y agoDebt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.
- dragonelite 5y agoIt has definitely changed my view on what money is and how it came to be. And how political money really is, like a king can say from now one 1 gold coin equals 11 silver coins etc. Another one is the book "And forgive them their debts" by Michael Hudson talking about ancient debt jubilee in the middle east. If i'm not mistaken one of the sources for debt: the first 5000 years book.
- q-base 5y agoAbsolute same for me. It challenged core beliefs which I had no idea ever would be. Thanks for the tip on the book.
- throw0101a 5y ago> It has definitely changed my view on what money is and how it came to be. You may be interested in Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein (of NPR's Planet Money). * https://bookshop.org/books/money-the-true-story-of-a-made-up-thing/9780316417198 https://bookshop.org/books/money-the-true-story-of-a-made-up...
- dragonelite 5y agoThanks for the tip I will put it on my ever growing reading list.
- sleepysysadmin 5y ago>Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting. The interesting things are everything Graeber missed. Which fair, he's an anthropologist and not an economist. Interestingly, none of which really contradicts him. When Jeff Bezos is worth billions, does he really? He doesn't have actual $, he has an abstract # derived from owning stocks in amazon. But how did you even get there? It's fundamentally debt. Every $ he is worth is the debt someone else has. Society owes him for his contribution. He created something that people love to use. Therefore he will be rewarded for that. The caveat is that he does not get interest for this debt. He's not holding mortgages or whatever. So inflation is the mechanism in which he gets poorer. He is forgiving that debt like Graeber explains it worked in the olden days. However, he obviously is still operating and continuing to earn, so his worth goes up. Flipside, if you are someone who holds mortgages, you earn the interest. You're not forgiving debt, so long as inflation is lower than the interest rate. Like right now, the market has bond rates well below inflation. The people holding debt are forgiving the debt. Which are often retirement funds and what have you because they are legally required to buy those. https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=realyield https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i... In the USA, even the 30 year bonds are negative. Whoever holds your debt is forgiving your debt in those percentages. Other countries like Germany have negative interest rates, they have to forgive the debt even faster. Why is this? This is the time when baby boomers are retiring. Germany obviously didn't do well in WW2 and it's going to impact them more.
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoThe one on debt or on bullshit jobs? From what I know, the book on debt is indeed quite influential in financial circles, although I find that a third of its content are entertaining passages on tribal societies. And the bullshit jobs book is a reiteration of the earlier essay. While the essay is concise and straight to the point, the book has dubious assumptions and generalisations that are there for attention-grabbing. David Graeber would have been the greatest mind of our era if he adopted the writing style of @pg: straight to the point essays that form a cult following. As much anti-estabilshment as he was, he was trying too much to fit his brilliant mind into XX century academia writing standards.
- bvm 5y ago> third of its content are entertaining passages on tribal societies he was an anthropologist
- q-base 5y agoAppears that he had wrote more books than what I knew. What a positive revelation. The one I liked was "Debt". Do you have a link to the article about bullshit jobs?
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoHere it goes: http://gesd.free.fr/graeber13.pdf http://gesd.free.fr/graeber13.pdf
- q-base 5y agoThanks!
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoI have yet to read his latest book, but the reviews seem quite promising. Basically he and his co-author challenge the view that we got more intelligent over time, and they do back their conclusions with extensive references.
- mellosouls 5y agoOriginal: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/03/david-graeber-posthumous-essay-pandemic https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/03/david-graeber-posthumous-...
- olalonde 5y agoIt's strange to see this upvoted on HN of all places. Some marxist inspired ramblings with no clear conclusion. Fact is that the free enterprise system works very well when you let it work and this is backed by a lot of empirical data.
- dgan 5y agoI haven't noticed any Marxist rambling here. People have right to write their opinions, even if dreamful
- p2t2p 5y agoActually Marxists are the best. They tend to express somewhat coherent viewes as Marxism have quite strong philosophical roots. Lots of others are just “views”, that is a pile of incoherent whims that should be realized somehow.
- olalonde 5y agoI was referring to the "class struggle" theme.
- c54 5y agoCommon misconception, examples are the 40hr work week and banning of payment in scrip in the 1800s. Another example is that monopolies require legislation or they have the effect of “seizing up” the dynamics of a functioning marketplace and turning toxic. Semiconductor patents being made public and telecom copper being made open to use by other companies are both pretty well understood examples of legislation that helped bring about the computer era we live in now. Not free market in a pure ideological sense, but a kind of curated open market dynamic. Markets are created by governments and don’t just spring from anywhere whole cloth. Markets are useful for many many things but need to be gardened, in effect. In our current world labor “markets” are really not that at all— if a participant does not have the ability to withdraw their offer of labor then price signaling doesn’t work. I’ve been reading the book Freedom From the Market, it’s well-researched and a literature review of sorts. Would recommend.
- smitty1e 5y agoThis is an opportunity to do to government what was done to cloud systems: architect for better scaling and distribution. There is a pre-modern tendency toward muscular executive branches that bears re-thinking, though.
- smitty1e 5y ago> At some point in the next few months, the crisis will be declared over Our governments seem to move from crisis to crisis, though the cart/horse roles are ambiguous here.
- chasd00 5y agoYes, if you can keep the people living in fear with the belief their government is the only answer then they will beg for subjugation.
- netizen-936824 5y agoComment seems to forget that humans are naturally fearful, its not some conspiracy. Just human nature
- cto_of_antifa 5y agoCitation needed. Plus, even if it is natural, that's not an argument about it being a good thing
- netizen-936824 5y agoI never said if it was beneficial or not, just that its not some huge conspiracy My citation is intro to psych textbooks
- xboxnolifes 5y agotaking advantage of that is the conspiracy.
- zohch 5y agoThe people shouting loudest about how bad everything is are the people who benefit most from things not getting better. So it is hardly surprising that some governments (e.g. US) jump from crisis to crisis.
- webspaceadam 5y agoOf course a quite short post. But indeed spinns of a couple of questions about our current reality. Going to remote work as one point. Of course this does not help the nurse in your local hospital. But i do hope, that it will have a major impact on our social lives regarding carework for your family. A shame that i found out about the death of graeber through this post…
- wallacoloo 5y ago> This is what happened after the 2008 financial crash. There was a brief moment of questioning. (What is “finance,” anyway? Isn’t it just other people’s debts? What is money? Is it just debt, too? What’s debt? Isn’t it just a promise? If money and debt are just a collection of promises we make to each other, then couldn’t we just as easily make different ones?) The window was almost instantly shut by those insisting we shut up, stop thinking, and get back to work, or at least start looking for it. yeah, sure, just completely ignore the $2T cryptocurrency industry that’s objectively a response to govt’s handling of 2008 (read Satoshi’s genesis block)? i’m not really sure what the author’s trying to push for though: that we all don’t go back to working for rich people? well sure, but the valuable part is showing us how to do that…
- matthewdgreen 5y agoI'm not sure the $2T cryptocurrency industry is a response to govt's handling of 2008. I think Satoshi cared very deeply about it: I'm not sure all of the $2T worth of participation in the current economy does, nor am I certain that the current crypto industry addresses many of the problems that existed in 2008.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- soared 5y agoSubjectively. But otherwise I generally agree. The authors paragraph seems to remember occupy Wall Street but forget that most people don’t care at all about finance if/when things return to normal.
- kf6nux 5y agoThat's market cap, right? When people say something is a $x industry, I normally think revenue per year. How big is the industry as measured by transaction/service fees?
- soared 5y agoMeh. I’ve seen a lot of these short essays about how after the pandemic we either should not or simply will not return to the status quo. It doesn’t really do anything to say “the economy doesn’t work” in 5 paragraphs and then say nothing else. Yes, lots of poor people are getting screwed. Some jobs don’t pay well despite the higher moral standing of directly assisting others. The environment looks pretty bad. But you can’t just say “rich people bad. New economy plz”. This essay is basically r/im14andthisisdeep
- wefarrell 5y agoAt the very least we need Federally mandated sick days. My mother caught COVID at the beginning of March of 2020 from a coworker who knew her husband had it but continued to come into work out of fear of losing her job. It's crazy that it would happen again during the next pandemic. Meanwhile 20 years after 9/11 we're still taking off our shoes to get on airplanes.
- commandlinefan 5y ago> out of fear of losing her job Wait, are you saying she was actually threatened with being fired if she didn't come in sick or that she just thought that she might be? If the latter, no federal mandate would change that - I get sick days, but I feel weird taking them, like I'm getting a black mark on my employment record that will come back to haunt me later. No law can change that, that's just how our society (currently) is.
- dragontamer 5y ago> No law can change that, that's just how our society (currently) is. Laws can change society, through propaganda. See "Click it or Ticket" campaigns, and the like. A simple PSA / Propaganda effort of "If you're sick with COVID19, stay at home. Federally mandated leave demands it", would probably go a long way. Maybe something like 'Use your sick days, they're a promised benefit of US Law', or "True Americans stay home when they're sick". (Etc. etc. I'm not good with PSA videos, but give it to some Hollywood artist and have them figure out the details, lol) The WW2 propaganda levied upon the population was incredibly epic in size and scope, and was key to building US national unity and drumming up support for the war. -------- There was that Bangladesh mask study, showing that something like 30+% of people would listen to masking advice/propaganda from religious leaders, in that 400+ village study. (200 villages as the control, 200 villages as the experiment. Found a bunch of religious leaders who would push pro-Mask statements and then ran the experiment). 10% of people wore masks before the study, 40% of the experiment-group wore masks after the study (so 30% of people were "affected"). No, that's not 100%. But changing even a fraction of the population would have huge effects.
- refurb 5y agoWasn’t this guys book on bullshit jobs completely debunked? I mean yeah, filing TPS sheets might seem pointless on their own but in the grand scheme of things someone needs to checkboxes. It might be unglamorous work but it necessary for the whole system to function. We talk about productivity gains and why we still work 40 hour weeks and my answer is always this - you’re free to trade those productivity gains for free time. Go and find a plot of land 1890 homesteaders would normally claim, grow some food, build a sod house and eschew modern society in all its flavors - technology, healthcare, engineering, etc. i don’t mean to sound like a dick, but that’s why we still work 40+ hour work weeks despite the efficiency gains - because a modern lifestyle costs a hell of a lot more than basic subsistence. People do this! Ted Kazinsky did it. It is possible. But of course everyone wants their mRNA vaccine technology and 10 hours weeks as well.
- jk20 5y agoHow was the book on bullshit jobs debunked? The idea is that many jobs do not contribute to "technology,healthcare,engineering, etc.", rather, salaries and work assignments are regulated to simply force people to spend most of their lives doing meaningless activities as a form of social control. Even Ted Kaczynski talked about "surrogate activities".
- iammisc 5y ago> to simply force people to spend most of their lives doing meaningless activities as a form of social control. This is a human universal. Even uncontacted hunter gatherer tribes spend most of their days doing absolutely nothing useful whatsoever. They sit around and talk shit with their friends. This is not social control. Humans doing nothing useful for most of the day is the norm.
- astura 5y agoHN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27392455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27392455
- jk20 5y ago
- jb1991 5y agoDavid Graeber was 59, not 51, when he died, according to Wikipedia.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jeliotj 5y agoThe so called "dream work" of doing something for its own sake is the highest form of work, and the most human
- iammisc 5y agoExcept few engage in this sort of work. If left to their own devices, most people would simply consume content produced by the 10-20% of people who would actually do anything useful. This is my observation. People are so weirded out when I tell them all the stuff I want to do. Most people just laze if left to their own devices and provided food. People have this image of hunter gatherer tribes doing interesting things in their free time, but the data show that, unless they're hunting, gathering, cooking, or doing other biological imperatives, most of their time is spent lazing. That's fine, but if your argument about not working is that humans are going to engage in 'dream work'... well I think that's just silly. Ultimately, from what I've seen, people with this mentality, often end up becoming quite well off. Those who want to engage in 'dream work' often have the self-motivating spirit that almost inevitably leads to material success.
- jeliotj 5y agoI mostly disagree with this dis on dream work: "And if we simply stopped, it might be possible to make ourselves a much more reasonable set of promises: for instance, to create an “economy” that lets us actually take care of the people who are taking care of us." There is a danger in focusing all our attention on utility. I am not disagreeing that humans can be lazy but don't think we should put the useful above the good, which is what I see this argument doing. Not that I know what the good is but I favor questioning or probing possibilities more than doing something "useful"
- DeathArrow 5y agoAnother guy gets angry and rightly so. But apart from that angriness - which I can find some simpaty for - the article does not tell us anything. Nothing about the complicate reasons our society is in this state. Nothing about some solutions to make it better.
- LurkingPenguin 5y agoWhat if the pandemic never ends?
- bob1029 5y agoWhat if a 20 mile wide bolide impacts the central united states?
- LurkingPenguin 5y agoThat would end the pandemic for sure.
- adminscoffee 5y agothat whole the great reset and how life will be different after the pandemic was not serious, those of us who know that knew that back when it was said. maybe it sounds negative, but come on, the system did not change for those who were on the front lines. it was a pat on the back for the working man or woman who was risking their lives, and getting nothing in return. a lot of people who have worked terrible jobs during the pandemic didn't have an opportunity to retrain and rethink about things, they were still working, the whole things are gonna change crowd were those who had the privilege to wait things out from the safety of their computers, they could order doordash or amazon groceries and drink their home made espresso while shopping for a cute new mask to show everyone how much they cared about being safe. the people who made the mask, worked in the food supply chain, delivered your groceries and doordash food kept their 60-70 hour a week job of hopelessness, had zero opportunity to shift away from that. while people were talking about how things are different now, many americans were dealing with the same, except they were now in an extremely dangerous situation (according to the experts) but, in many cases did not receive anything other than "thanks", and maybe a dollar or two more in tips, if they didn't forget anything. what the pandemic has taught me is that we are not some civilized, future minded society, we are a bunch of naked apes with pitchforks who like to hoard for profit and fight over which candidate sweet talks better but offers zero solutions other than creating race/freedom/whatever division you can think of... culture war. do we have a chance to make things better? yes, when we stop looking at the world through a political lens, and start looking at it from a humanity lens.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y agoIt's good to have savings for when times get bad. Then you can afford to buy things like door dash to get through the bad times. Investing in your education is also good, so that you have valuable skills even when money gets devalued. That some people can not save up for various reasons does not imply the people who did save for hard times are to blame. If it angers you, don't work for door dash. Odds are, the people who worked for door dash were actually happy they had a job during the pandemic.
- mostertoaster 5y ago> just a way of tabulating the aggregate desires of rich people, most of whom are at least slightly pathological, He lost me here. Guy is just a communist hoping for another Bolshevik Revolution. Maybe it is true of the uber rich, but the majority of millionaires are just normal people who saved, started a business, and just invested. If I was to judge someone character strictly off their economic status, you’re likely to find on average that the average rich man is a more moral productive member of society than the average poor one. If he was talking about the bureaucrats way of getting rich by accepting bribes and funneling taxes to their pockets he might have had me. As it is his ideas would just make it worse.
- guerrilla 5y agoGraeber is an anarchist, so definitely not hoping for a Bolshevik Revolution, something he always opposed. > If I was to judge someone character strictly off their economic status, you’re likely to find on average that the average rich man is a more moral productive member of society than the average poor one. You didn't give an argument as to why you would believe that. Graeber presumably believes the opposite because the poor suffer needing while the rich refrain from helping despite being able to. It can be considered allowing harm[1], introductory trolley problem stuff. Of course I can't speak for him but based on what he's written elsewhere I think he would agree that it's not possible to be rich and moral while people go starving because he believes people have an obligation to help those in need when they can (i.e. when it is not too harmful to themselves.) If you don't agree with that, then it's likely you differ in the assumptions you have rather than the logic here. 1. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/doing-allowing/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/doing-allowing/
- _fat_santa 5y agoI see this recurring theme in things I read from places like Jacobin and other socialist leaning places, they seem to completely ignore the middle and upper-middle class. In every argument, there seems to be only two groups of people. The "slaves" working their 9-5 jobs making minimum wage and barely getting by, and the uber-rich like Bezos, Gates, etc. What they never say is there are tons of millionaires, they didn't have spectacular jobs, they drive regular cars and live in regular houses. They just saved for years and years and now they have a nest egg that's worth 7 figures. I get why no one talks about them, when you talk about the "millionaires and billionaires", you immediately think of a Bezos type, vacationing on their yacht. You don't think about the husband and wife that both drive Camry's and live in a nice suburban home with a net worth of close to $5M because they invested and saved their whole life.
- fuckyah 5y agoThe vaxx doesn’t do shit
- SquibblesRedux 5y agoI am hopeful there will be a technological inflection at which adequate nutritious food, clean water, and shelter will be freely self-sustaining for all people. I am not talking about a point at which these things are provided or paid for, but rather a point at which the appropriate technologies are plentiful and self-sustaining, much like plants are today.