David Graeber: On Bureaucratic Technologies & the Future as Dream-Time / 01.19.2012 @ SVA
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- The twentieth century produced a very clear sense of what the future was to be, but we now seem unable to imagine any sort of redemptive future. How did this happen? One reason is the replacement of what might be called poetic technologies with bureaucratic technologies. Another is the terminal perturbations of capitalism, which is increasingly unable to envision any future at all.
David Graeber likes to say that he had three goals for 2011: to promote his new book, Debt: The First 5000 Years (Melville House), learn to drive, and launch a worldwide revolution. He's done well on the first, failed the second, and the third may be on the way, in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement that Graeber helped initiate. He teaches anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is also the author of Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value, Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, and Direct Action: An Ethnography, among other books.
David Graeber gave this talk in the School of Visual Arts theater on 19 January 2012 at 7.
Q&A begins at 52:24
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Many great quotes... like "neoliberalism means provide credit to everybody so that everybody can participate...as a way of democratizing the system...leads to this strange system where freedom means being able to own a piece of your own permanent exploitation" 46:00
So sad that he died so young. He had an amazing mind. So impressive.
David Graeber 12 February 1961 - 2 September 2020. RIP.
Rest in Power David
WHAT?? I had no idea. RIP
"This has nothing to do with human need, it has to do with the need of maintaining a system of radical inequality, which as it turns out is really really expensive in terms of hours."
love that.
david has said in one of his other talks about liberating people from mundane jobs, people say "what will people do with all their free time?", david said "If you don't know what to do with human liberty... that's pretty messed up." (he talks about being musicans/poets/being creative/etc)
He has also said things like "how about we create/raise people we would want/enjoy being around" (my head is not recalling the context, but it may of been about living in a toxic society)
@@stephentrueman4843 I think the last thing you're referring to is in his "origins of capitalism" lecture, a pretty dense talk concerning debt where he eventually gets to the topic of how societies used to think of work and the economy in terms of the kind of people it'd "create", as opposed to any kind of calculation of highest possible profits. I probably simplified the hell out of that, and David said it more eloquently & clearly than I ever could in that talk. Big recommendation for people to listen to that one, if they can get through all the sorta complex dowry/brideswealth history analysis at the start.
Well said
@@stephentrueman4843That one was during an attempt to specify a purpose for work that may stand a good chance of not having to be hidden or changed IIRC.
@@joshdoyle182 okay thanks
This guy is a genius. That should be taught at schools.
Agreed. Although one little hiccup, they killed him for speaking, so I don't think we're their yet, still stuck in bar bar fash fash land unfortunately...bam....bam
@@SlabCityLibertarianAssemblyany evidence he was killed?
He would be creating an educated proletariat, which is why reagan defunded schools of community of color the first french revolutionary movement Her, as well as their first feminist movement, was based off of a book written by an iroquois woman.Call nizers will always tell you you cannot govern yourself because only white knights can do it.When in reality, all they did was drink beer, ate pork and shat in their clean water
I guess that is the same coffee cup from the Google DEBT-lecture
Writing a paper on that right now. . .
Theres another lecture where he does the same thing
The cup that keeps on giving
Found you!
My man Graeber just didnt wanna incur a debt on the hosts at the talk ; p
Honestly one of my favourite people ever.
I listen to this lecture every 6 months religiously.
Me too me too ...
(It's been already 6 months,time to watch it again)
Main points: David likes star trek and hates paper work
A great lecture, first watched it a year or so ago, now watching again for a second time, doubt it'll be the last.
I am willing to bet all of my no money that Adam Curtis has watched this talk 12 times.
The minimum wage has steadily decreased since the early 1970s, meaning the government has had to provide more benefits while also getting less in tax collection as a result of the lower income of the working class. This has destroyed the ability of the government to tackle the big projects and funneled billions of dollars to the wealthiest people in the country. If only they knew the cost of their wealth.
They know, they just don't care. They're sociopaths. That's how they got to where they are.
I don't think they care.
They do know
My ex used to freak out violently whenever anyone smacked their lips. This video was very therapeutic for me.
I like your ex- lip smacking and chewing... arghhh- there's a name for this sensitivity
Yeah its called being an ass. You'll just have to get over it.
@@legalfictionnaturalfact3969 Many people on the spectrum have trouble with specific sounds, so it's not necessarily being an ass. I have no problem with lip smacking, but a dog barking will make me very confused and disturbed, it takes over all my senses and I get either paralyzed or (much more commonly) freaked out. It's not a "choice" for me, it's just what happens. So I'll give her ex the benefit of the doubt
@@Aquificae dog barking makes more sense. chewing? get the fuck over it or stay away from people, spectrum or no. yeah, it's annoying, but don't make others self conscious by whining about the sounds they make KEEPING THEMSELVES ALIVE. enough people have serious issues surrounding food as it is..
@@legalfictionnaturalfact3969 Always hilarious to see someone say "just have to get over it" to sound like a manly man on the interwebs. Let's try this: no you can't chew or smack your lips loudly, just get over it. See, that is not an argument for shit, you just say it to pat your ego and sound "though" (to easily impressed people exclusively). And keeping themselves alive? Oh you fuck off you online "though" man. Point me ONE singular way loudly chewing or smacking your lips keeps you life. We are not talking breathing here.
should explore Heidegger's take on technology relative to hypothesis that all technology leans toward alienation and modes of control; which would align w Graeber's thoughtful anarchism
I love how bored he gets. David is one of the greatest minds of our time. How can someone ask a 5 minute question and excet an answer?
Excellent talk by Graeber. Thank you for this and thanks to Dr. Graeber for his valuable insights and thoughts.
HES DRINKING THE COFFEE!!!
An exceptional thinker. RIP
35:59 is what Alan Kay talks about when he explains the organization and structure of his research team in Xerox Parc. And we’re living in that dream they created.
Time we make some new ones upon this one.
it is flabbergasting how inane the questions from the audience were at this talk.
omg. that 1st lady drove me nuts
There are shills in the crowd
Michael Stone Grandison “yOu R sAYiNg TwO TingS. OnLY sAy One ☝️ tINg” lol
"iPhone better than flying car!1!" lmaoo
When iam honest, smartphones not really made my life better. I really don't know what's so revolutionary about them. Not much has changed.
"I'm quite optimistic about the death of capitalism at this point."
Along with human civilization, as it seems most leaders would rather see the world burn than give way for more sustainable ideas.
@@5Gazto joe manchin is literally burning pieces of the world(coal) and creating poison rather than to move to a nonpoisonous regenerative energy design that is a tenth of the effort, and then he castigates the people who are environmentally dutiful as being "entitled". projection, thy name is joe manchin.
This comments section is full of people who can't read bodylanguage. Toward the end of the vid, during questions, the reason he's picking up the cup a lot, leaning his weight on the podium briefly, wrapping his hand up his face then shifting posture quickly again, looking around, smiling and acting a little strange by turn, taking deep breaths and sending his hand all around his face, and unable to concentrate on the questions being asked is because he's having anxiety, probably a mild panic attack. He's only just keeping it together there. Aside from that, yes, he knows his stuff. Very interesting.
MusicalDudeMayhem Shup, he's awesome
MusicalDudeMayhem No he's not
MusicalDudeMayhem the coffee thing is all the way through
But what he says is very challenging. It's just s tick with the coffee.
What a nice bonus to hear about so-called futuristic technologies right off the bat. This isn't philosophy as much as real technologies being dismissed as conspiracy theories by a control of information.
Need to watch this later.. RIP David Graeber
the book he references around 40 minutes is called "After the Future" by Franco 'Bifo' Birardi. Worth a read if anyones interested, and published by AK Press.
Perfect description of my experience in academia
brilliant mate, concise articulate and farrkn on to it
The future is here! Think Theranos, Juicero, WeWork and Kailo. You can create anything you want (forget about if it really works or not) and some shmuck will pay for it.
Graeber needs to explore the ideology behind finance to explain how we got here. the delineation of the ideology can be couched in code but should be described. greed, racism etc has a source that must be revealed
He achieved that in his book Debt, a 5000 years history.
That such a masterpiece of speculation could be followed by such clueless questions proves a lot of his arguments. Its almost impossible to tell well-off over-educated snobs, that society has loss more potential than the potential you think you have.
Iain Banks' 'Culture' series is a case in point of an imagined society based on technology we thought we would get.
There were some "cheatty" question and lots of ego hurt. OMG. The guy spent almost an hour opening the eyes what could very well be another theory of Capitalism and Capitalism analysis and people were saying how IPhones are bigger than cars and he is personafying the Capitalism. Give me a break. I guess that's what BS jobs do to people.
At about 1:08:00 "Capitalism does this or does that...you PERSONIFY capitalism I thought that was kind of interesting"
What is she even talking about? If I say "the cheetah leaped here and then leaped there" am I personifying a cheetah now? No! I am describing it's movements or actions. What David has been describing is the paths and roads capitalism has forced us down, the actual limits and barriers it has created intentionally or unintentionally by its existing rules principles and processes. This isn't personification, but merely description of the realities created under capitalism.
it's been up a long time with few views looks like YT is doing it's magic
26:42 Such a tease! So close to a sip.
I know that in the US the majority can't even fathom the thoughts of people being able to live without having to dig ditches for 10 hours per day. It's sad considering that we have mastered making money from nothing.
Enjoyed DG. However, the problem with the Left is clearly demonstrated by the Questions section. Why some feel they have the right to take up scarce communal time waffling on in a feeble attempt to demonstrate their parity with DG is ludicrous and alienating. This is why 'ordinary folk' don't attend such meetings or want to be led by confusing and incomprehensible egoists. Ask a question. If you cannot articulate it without producing a word salad then let someone else ask a question (or three). No one came here for you.
So profound.
bravo...!!!
A certain futurist of the 1920's would call us now a "civilization of chiselers". I would largely have to agree with Him. We seem to have landed in a reverse sort of brave new world. The purpose of work is to maintain the power of the overseers, the power of the overseers is used to maintain "full employment" the purpose of which is to keep people off of the barricades through functionless toil. Both happiness and dissatisfaction are commodified and resold in "childsafe" packaging, where they are not useable for their actual functions anymore. We are taught to fear and despise the actual consequences of any actual change. We are largely all invested and only prepared for things to go on as usual.
This is the beginning of the beginning!
was it
@@user-ej7ss8ei2g I think so. Occupy laid the foundation for Bernie, who laid the foundation for ...
Innovation used to mean putting people on the moon.. now we get the same phone ever year but thinner..
I can't speak for all of the Jetson/StarTrek technologies, but advanced robotics is impossible without modern computer power. A robot that does your laundry needs vision and basic vision tasks like recognizing hand written characters were entirely unapproachable until about a decade ago. The field has continued to progress at a remarkable rate since then, but we're still maybe a decade away from human level visual acuity.
thank god for crowd sourcing
building on the guy who said sci fi is 'hard' and to whom Graeber said that previous sci-fi technologies had come to pass. perhaps it is more that science is hard, in that we have a far greater understanding collectively of the limits of science in particular our understanding of physics has pushed us right up to the limits of what we know to be possible, whereas before the invention of a submarine in 1870s or whatever was never that impossible given how close it was to being invented within range of our collective (lack of) knowledge of physics. A case in point is the recent sci-fi film Her which imagines a kind of Utopian LA - air conditioned, clinical and genuinely egalitarian - replete with all the problems of anxiety and loneliness that besiege the modern relationship familiar to us. In that film the technology is digital and invisible, an AI capable of learning and empathy and which thus has the capacity to be a perfect partner. This technology only exists in an auditory sense but provides in the final scenes a possible solution, though terrifying, to the problems of man, as it overcomes its own - the existence of the AIs incorporeal life that evolves beyond the technological singularity grants it the ability to transcend the problems they identify in their own existence. The AIs leave by transcendence and the people return to each other and embrace the physical dimension of life. But this is not as neat a conclusion as it seems. Precisely because it is the AIs who have taught the humans, it suggests that they in part have the secret to existence - virtuality. In short, by renouncing the physical world you avoid the problems of physics. Perhaps only now as we have reached this pinnacle of scientific knowledge does it make our scifi seem less poetic in the sense Graeber attributed to it or as the audience member has it, differently hard.
Or maybe it's that the guy's comment about science being hard was freaking stupid.
Graeber himself points out that many early technologies failed this kind of test, such as time machines. while today there are clear examples of mass reproducible technologies that just aren't being incorporated into the daily lives of the average person because it makes it hard for the capitalist to extract profit. he even gives an example of the supersonic commercial jet, the Concorde. the reason why most airline travel today is subsonic isn't because it isn't technically feasible, or desirable to the customer, but because the Concorde was less profitable than creating a slower jet that could hold more people. so rather than having thousands of concordes flying at Mach 3, we have hundreds of 737 maxes that are flying at Mach .5 and are falling apart. it isn't science holding technology back, but the political economics of neoliberal capitalism.
Very good talk. Only thing I find problematic is that he is implying that any technology is possible if bureaucracy is not there. This is problematic to me. We cannot say what technologies are possible or not possible in the future, can we?
I want to be a David Graeber when I grow up
36:07 - 36:24 brilliant
1:12:36
20:30 its already gone down the tubes
huge fan of this guy. A lot of this stuff like robots really did turn out to be a lot harder than we could have reasonably been expected to believe (i.e. we were reasonable, it was an exogenous shock, like discovering atomic weapons). About the trip to Mars, he's right, but maybe you could also say budgets were cut by greedy corporatists that bought Congress
All of this stuff will happen once sufficient data is collected on the human machine. That's the essential detail that the previous generation of scientists overlooked.
No, the inside in ourselves won't create a radical new future. But without self-confidence we will not have a future at all. We have to collectively create our future, in which direction do we want to develop as a society. Grabers point, the focus on money destroys the future, should be taken seriously. Understanding the human animal is necessary, but without reason we still have no Direction. If the focus is still on the money issue we won't have development.
i responded because you are good looking
I went through his one and a half hour google talk without him ever taking a sip from his drink. I am 23 minutes into this one. Is he going to do it this time?
24 minutes, fuck yeah! I can die in piece now.
no, chumps would be spending their time listening to the mainstream media, Rush Limbaugh, etc, not historic discussion of a complex subject.
It's pretty obvious that technology could be much more advanced than it is. We see it all the time with gene therapy. If powerful people wanted gene therapy, stem cell research, and more work on genes done they would have figured out how to get society excited rather than slam on the brakes.
It's the systemic / cultural incentive structures in "market economics" that reinforces these patterns and behaviors.
In plain sight.
Graeber was way too much of a threat to the financial ruling class to survive 2020.
I'm curious why you and others are saying this. His wife put out a statement saying he died from covid? That said, I wouldn't be surprised if what you say is true.
@@wildernessisland2573 he probably did die of covid, but most people would like to think of the Subversive, that has to physically taken out to stop, versus most subversives that don't have a violent bone in their bodies, who are easily stopped as soon as the cops get out their clubs. as a latter example, a lot of my paranoid shower rants have to do with the former.
Poetic tech still happens, it just gets relegated to psuedoscience and no one is allowed to pursue it.
It's like elon musk is the only person allowed to even try
@@wildernessisland2573 almost like elon musk is the only one with the capital to try. if my father owned a emerald mine, you'd be damn sure not seeing me at the grocery market. as for all the other parasitic capitalists, they are either too stupid, too brainwashed, or too sadistic to do anything else but continue the path that Graeber has put out of ever increasing beaucratization. and even with elon, all he is doing is buying all the ideas and patents from brilliant people with no money, giving young adept people money to take these patents and create something with it. elon musk isn't a genius, he pays geniuses to work for him.
I figure the prisoner's dilemma is the best descriptor of an economy, especially in larger numbers.
Work is going to be obsolete.
Anyone starting this video, please skip the first 2 mins 48 seconds-nothing personal against the guy who introduces Mr Graeber but he is not saying anything you really need to hear and he mumbles....
Considering the plummeting birth rate in many Western countries, maybe Toffler wasn’t totally off base when he said motherhood was threatened
Form follows Function (e-Pi-i sync-duration in particular) so take the labels off the process of AM-FM Communication In-form-ation and re-evaluate how re-evolution operates in Actuality.
Start: 2:50
Sorry but what a stupid bunch of questions from the audience, not sure what they were listening too, they either asked questions unrelated to the topic or acted like the speaker was saying completely different things than presented.
Am I the only one that thinks that capitalism HAS produced the robots with laser eyes? DRONES for example and he doesn't discuss the exhaustion of resources to maintain profit levels at depth.
That was the most dull introduction to a talk I have ever seen
You are one of the luckiest people ever! I've sat through FAR worse! FAR!
post modernism is the dysfunctional path we too after we let the OWNERS abandon modernism
2:52 to skip the intro
Did Peter thirl just copy this idea?
Guys this is really great but his "ums" is really distracting.
interesting people usually come with some crazy mannerisms
One of the developments that the future has in fact brought us is new untraceable ways for governments to bring death to those they don't like. Of course, they don't actually use these . . . RIP David Graeber.
8 years later, the questions are still s***
The eleventh commandment: THE RICH RULE THE POOR. Governments are instituted to codify, adjudicate and enforce this commandment.
What is the right's response to beurocracy that he is talking about? Does someone know? Please answer if you do!
the rights response to bureaucracy at least to what i have encountered, is that 1.the private sector is less bureaucratic than the public sector, which is mockingly laughable to the people who actually tabulate this stuff, that 2. we should just throw all of these bureaucrats into the fiery pit of destitution rather than view them as actual people who you can empathize with and transition to meaningful work or meaningful leisure, 3. that the solution to getting rid of this bureaucracy is to cut costs like the marketplace like they did with the post office(didn't work), and 4. to roll back safety standards that keep workers alive. the most lucid i have gotten out of the right as to paying people to not create endless work with endless documentation, is support of a UBI, but even that they want to make regressive so it's means tested to the point that it would just replace one sort of bureaucracy with another that would just be more centralized and cohesive. the right is even more bureaucratic than the left, there just hypocritical about it.
He is forgetting about cyberpunk which pretty much predicted the way we are heading including the top down control and the collapse of the middle class.
michalchik
Cyberpunk predicted that? I thought Marx did, about 150 years ago.
Not really. He is talking about technological predictions, not social organisation. And even the very modest predictions of 80s cyberpunk have not come to pass. We don't even have virtual reality or brain jacks!
Viva y salud!
The internet is a big deal and it's playing into bigger things.
this is so hard for misophonics
He mentions the expectations of the 60s with robots factories and the disillusioned workers of the 70s who were sick of working but no words on how those workers were supposed to pay for goods without capital
Joseph Tynan
UBI isn't just a new concept, there were very robust and concrete policy proposals in the 1940's that would've given everyone the capital to buy these good's.
is david heiling? 4:00
like i doubt it...
Trauma? Relief, more like.
Also why would decolonisation require slaughtering the sedentary population?
First girl questioning is mad disrespectful...
Woman.
Leave the cup alone
Nah, when you're the speaker, you do what you want. :-)
London Review of BASED
@1:24:10
if you want to drive yourself crazy - watch the coffee cup...
like you know um and so i mean uh
35:00
thesis antithesis synthesis
9:35 Chat Gpt
Sun iz is on your mind so you you know where we
9:35 Chat Gpt 😅
Great talk till the pedants in the audience start talking
00; 53; 07 what a stupid question / and argument from audience!
:55.00
These are some of the most ignorant and tone deaf post-lecture questions I’ve ever heard
Ten years later i can play fortnite in my phone 👌
summary reminds me of Couliano's thesis in Eros and Magic in the Renaissance; erotic sorcery and magic bonding of the populace vs dark totalitarianism. finance people have terrible imaginations maybe and creative magic squashed by profit academies; tech equally unimaginative and greedy
Ohhhhhhh noooooooooooooo D:
He is holding a cup of caffee in his hand xD
He goes "umm" too much but it doesn't matter because the subject matter is too interesting to stop listening
I didn't even notice