5 ms·

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.

by q-base 5y ago

mellosouls 5y ago
His 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 ago
  Oh 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 ago
  Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    It 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 ago
      Absolute 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 ago
        Thanks 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.
  - barrenko 5y ago
    The ascent of Money is also good.
sam_lowry_ 5y ago
The 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 ago
  Appears 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 ago
    Here it goes: http://gesd.free.fr/graeber13.pdf http://gesd.free.fr/graeber13.pdf
    - q-base 5y ago
      Thanks!
    - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
      I 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.

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.

by q-base 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.

mellosouls 5y ago

His 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 ago
Oh 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 ago
Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.
- dragonelite 5y ago
  It 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 ago
    Absolute 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 ago
      Thanks 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.
- barrenko 5y ago
  The ascent of Money is also good.

sam_lowry_ 5y ago

The 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 ago
Appears 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 ago
  Here it goes: http://gesd.free.fr/graeber13.pdf http://gesd.free.fr/graeber13.pdf
  - q-base 5y ago
    Thanks!
  - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
    I 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.