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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

And what a classic "journalistic" cheap shot they're taking at him with that photo (https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e901f036a105724595e106ace3d6...). I was going to ask if anyone could suggest a better article, but the text itself is quite good. No doubt the photo was chosen by someone other than the author.

A pity to lose him. Graeber was unusually fresh, with a talent for provoking interesting discussion, whether one agreed or not. He also got into flamewars on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=davidgraeber.

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The photographer was [name redacted]. His portfolio [0] has several posed portraits of famous people that might be considered less than flattering but which were clearly posed with their agreement. [redacted] has produced work for news sources across the political spectrum including The Telegraph (diametrically opposite from the Guardian).

It's certainly possible that the author didn't choose it but it is possible that Graeber himself didn't object.

[Edit - totally agree about the sadness of his loss]

[0] [link redacted]

I am the photographer who shot his portrait. Sorry to hear he has passed. He was a lovely and friendly man as far as I recall from the few mins I had with him many years ago. He was very keen to pull some “quirky” expressions, his own choice. Other more “flattering” ones were also taken and provided to The Guardian. There’s no stitch-up intended here and it’s a shame that’s what’s being interpreted from his expression.

Great reply, thanks. I personally really liked this portrait and wanted to suggest to other commentators that it was intentionally quirky and not a stitch-up

P.S. The majority of my portraits were shot for The Guardian and The Independent. The fact that I‘ve also shot a few assignments for The Telegraph and Wall Street Journal doesn’t indicate or imply a particular political affiliation. It’s probably best to not make assumptions that a photographer or even a writer holds the same views or political stance as the publication that commissioned them.

I've redacted some personally identifying information from the comment above. It's clear that the comment wasn't malicious; it's just that these things can have unintended side effects (e.g. when they show up in search results) and we do our best to take care of people about such things.

I feel that you're rushing to judgement and assuming the worst.

The article sings his praises. The photograph isn't the best, but perhaps it was an attempt to illustrate his quirky and iconoclastic nature.

I fully agree with you that this is a sad loss. Much too soon.

You may be right - I'm certainly making an interpretation there.

Edit: I realized something about my priors in this case. I've long had the sense that flattering vs. unflattering photo choices are a powerful way by which newspapers (or some faction of editors within them—I don't know how newspapers work) express a pre-existing agenda.

The photo choice struck me as a cheap shot too. But I don't know who's responsible for that at the Guardian. I assumed knowing his views on the Guardian they didn't try very hard when it came to the photo.

It’s worth remembering that The Guardian, like most large organisations, is comprised of individuals who may vary quite significantly from the position of the entity overall. This article may be a reflection of that.

DISCLAIMER: I’m a subscriber.

I think you're probably right. If the subject's photograph is unflattering the content of the article skews negative. For example, just look at any article where the person has their mouth open and is making the 'Ch' or the 'Ooo' sound - it's always negative.

This is why it's hard to be a human.

We jump to conclusions, but we're not always unwarranted. It'd be better to live in a world where we didn't have to suspect ulterior motives.

But alas, hill climbing in an adversarial landscape while continually being preempted and distracted seems to be our lot in life. It's no wonder we're a bit grumpy.

Those things are not accidents.

>I've long had the sense that flattering vs. unflattering photo choices are a powerful way by which newspapers (or some faction of editors within them—I don't know how newspapers work) express a pre-existing agenda.

Don't always ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence (or time pressure on deadline). But deliberately choosing unflattering photos is certainly something that happens. It may often be the choice of an individual with an ax to grind, and no oversight, not an implicit policy of the organization

I personally really like the photograph, it feels like it’s in the spirit of his work. Anarchism is a bit cheeky

> I was going to ask if anyone could suggest a better article, ...

This is more tangential than it is better, but it is a nice read:

https://newrepublic.com/article/159227/david-graeber-changed...

On the contrary, I thought that photo showed him with a quizzical, skeptical look, which is something I would bet he'd appreciate were he here to do so.

Any chance we can get a black bar for him? His ideas were so interesting that I think it would be appropriate, even though he wasn't involved in the history of computing per se.

I agree with your take on his look in that picture. Additionally, while his views of the Guardian have soured, it's more to the left than the quotes above might suggest. E.g. this opinion piece from today: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/03/left-b...

I think Graeber's point is that occasionally publishing writers like this gives the Guardian a kind of fake left cred that then makes their attacks on the left (which can be relentless, as in the case of Corbyn) much more powerful.

Below his pinned tweet on the Guardian is this tweet from him, mentioning the writer of the opinion piece you link (Aditya Chakrabortty):

> this is the "cred" they built up by publishing people like me, .@OwenJones84, .@GeorgeMonbiot, .@chakrabortty - all of whom I very much respect. They used us so no one would believe they would simply lie to destroy any chance of a left gov't. But that's exactly what they did. - https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210323190402162704

I actually respect David Graeber a whole lot more than the others he mentions here because he didn't let his access to the Guardian stop him from calling them out. Going as far as to say he wouldn't write for them again.

So much this. The anti-Corbyn smearing was practically Soviet in its intensity, and directly contributed to the appalling political situation the UK finds itself in now. You expect it from the right, but when it's also coming from the supposed left - in sync with obvious social media astroturfing - it's impossible not to question what's really going on.

I know a number of people who will never trust the Guardian again. Unfortunately I know more who simply believed the lies.

I'm glad Graeber said all this because he confirmed what a lot of people suspected was the case.

So an especially sad loss, as well.

Corbyn actually got an easy ride in many ways, notably in the 2017 election where he inexplicably was able to stand as effectively the main Remain candidate without challenge, despite his record of Eurosceptism.

All of the accusations of antisemitism were dismissed by his supporters out of hand, but some were legitimate, likely not in any personal antisemitism but in a willingness to turn a blind eye to antisemitism in ideological allies.

David Graeber seems an impressive guy, but that doesn’t mean he’s right in everything.

I just watched a video where Graeber points out that Boris Johnson himself wrote a novel promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, but not a single article was written about Tory anti-Semitism in prominent papers during the height of that controversy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6oOj7BzciA

What's inexplicable about it? They're called the Labour party, not the Remain party.

Corbyn got invited to a Jewdas passover party - it's in literally no dispute that he was against anti-semitism. Labour's systematic problems were under investigation at the time and it was fair of him to not say anything until that investigation completed, however that itself was turned by the press into being viewed as an avoidant strategy, rather than an act of prudence. And as far as anti-semitism goes, the Tories have a much longer and much deeper history of islamaphobia. But at no point did it recieve the same 24/7 press attention, even though many of the incidents were happening concurrently. It was generally only ever mentioned as a sidenote to the Labour anti-semitism scandal. Hell, for a practical sample, just look at this article by the bbc[1], chosen at random (keywords: tory party islamaphobia general election), it is about Tory islamaphobia but the majority of the content present, per paragraph, is devoted to the anti-semitism accusations against Labour.

Even at the end of the year, the Tory party had failed to address it in any meaningful sense[2]

In no way did he get an easy ride. Every single tabloid and media outlet was, on the whole, against him from the start. There was a London School of Economics study a number of years back, showing definively that press coverage of Corbyn was nowhere near balanced[3]. That's not even to take into account that during the election debate, the BBC edited out laughs, by the audience, directed at Johnson's comments[4]. The bbc committed a number of "editorial mistakes" that represented themselves as Tory bias.

[1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50561043

[2]: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/islamophobia-conservati...

[3]: https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/research/rese...

[4]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/25/bbc-admits-mis...

While I understand it's much to ask, I can recommend this episode of the Trashfuture podcast that goes into the anti-semitism kerfuffle: https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/e/anger-ramadan-feat-...

or perhaps the article linked from the show notes: https://novaramedia.com/2020/04/14/i-feel-both-furious-and-v...

I'm nowhere near qualified to assess how accurate all of this is, but it all feels eerily similar to how the supposed American left, the Democrats, actively undermined Bernie Sanders in ways that IMO went too far. While I'm sure that's also up for debate, I at least followed the Bernie campaign closely.

>I think Graeber's point is that occasionally publishing writers like this...

> this is the "cred" they built up by publishing people like me, .@OwenJones84, .@GeorgeMonbiot, .@chakrabortty -

I will challenge on the term 'occasional'.

George Monbiot writes a weekly column

Owen Jones writes a regular column

Aditya Chakrabortti writes a regular column and is their senior economics commentator.

This reduces your opening paragraph to, "By regularly publishing left wingers, by employing them on its staff, by publishing left wing material, the Guardian seeks to pass itself off as a left wing paper. " Well...yes.

I should also say that the idea that the Labour anti-semitism scandal was a plot to smear Corbyn, is not universally acknowledged even amongst left wingers.

Perhaps "occasional" wasn't the right choice of word. They have regular columns, yes, but when the Guardian goes into attack mode against the left, these writers either don't appear or are drowned out by others in the paper.

I spent some time helping collect examples of the Guardian's output during its obsession with attacking Jeremy Corbyn. Try to find comparable coverage in support of Corbyn in the Guardian to offset these attack pieces published between 2015 and 2017: https://theguardian.fivefilters.org (note that Owen Jones, far from being a dissenting voice, joined in with the attacks here, later apologising).

David Graeber tweeted a link to this at the time - after all the Guardian's doomsayers were proven wrong. https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/874853587880423426

After some time the Guardian intensified its attacks, this time focusing on spurious claims of antisemitism. They refused to run Graeber's piece defending Corbyn. Again, see if you can find comparable coverage defending Corbyn in the Guardian compared to ones trying to tar him with the antisemite brush: https://theguardian.fivefilters.org/antisemitism/

And that's of course not mentioning the study that found the Guardian to be one of the most innacurate in reporting claims of antisemitism (more so than even the Sun and the Daily Mail). That little fact is still the pinned tweet on Graeber's Twitter account, which must really annoy the Guardian when his name's trending on Twitter. https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210322505229094912

Paul Mason also was busy trying to climb over Corbyn's corpse.

He's another of the Look-We-Publish-Left-Wing-Opinion go-tos for the Guardian centrists.

I see the graph in the pinned tweet, but where is the study it is based on?

I doubt it annoys the Guardian at all. I think they are more than used to this kind of criticism.

Here's the link to the study: https://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/La...

Criticism they can ignore (as they often do) I'm sure doesn't bother them. But the widespread resentment toward the Guardian does bother them. It was apparent from their writers' responses when #BoycottTheGuardian was trending on Twitter for example, or more recently when they announced big job cuts and their writers pleas for support were mostly met with derision.

I think it is easy to feel things are more widespread than they are when guaged from social media.

Eg.I was very critical of Corbyn's stance on Brexit, and having a few followers I captured the attention of the Corbynite WhatsApp group run by Seamus Milne's team, and was heavily trolled...Rachel Swindon et al... and I block trolls, so fell out of the Corbynite bubble. The result of this is I have not seen widespread outrage against the Guardian at all. Perhaps widespread in revolutionary socialist circles is a more correct assertion.

> I captured the attention of the Corbynite WhatsApp group run by Seamus Milne's team, and was heavily trolled...Rachel Swindon et al...

This is a conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.

Except for the direct quotes from her.

"“I do get advice from them,” she said. “But that’s the end of that.”

She eventually explained that there are several private Twitter DM groups where discussion goes on “all day”, with new pro-Corbyn lines posted alongside anti-Tory memes — which are often taken and repurposed from Facebook groups.

Asked whether Labour officials were in the groups speaking to the pro-Corbyn accounts, she said “Maybe”, smiling."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/heres-the-woman-behin...

It was tangential to my point, but Corbynite trolls were just as nasty and just as organized as the right wingers. Everyone not for Corbyn was neoliberal scum, or a 'yellow Tory'. In the end this only serves to shut down real debate and polarise each bubble.

Your implication was that Seamus Milne, or his team, command a sort of "troll army" through WhatsApp. This is substantially different to disseminating talking points to friendly media faces (which is something all parties do, and is normal in political campaigning).

When you got trolled, it wasn't because of a secret WhatsApp group conspiring against you. It was because you said something that a large number of left wing people disagreed with, and Twitter worked the way it usually works and encouraged an organic pile-on. I can assure you that the UK left-wing network on Twitter has no need to get marching orders from a mythical WhatsApp group. If somebody says something that the left disagrees with, pile-ons will happen naturally.

Ironically, by dismissing people who disagree with you as commanded by Seumas Milne, you are shutting down debate yourself.

Disseminating talking points to friendly faces...

Nice euphemism.

>Additionally, while his views of the Guardian have soured, it's more to the left than the quotes above might suggest.

It's one thing to wax lyrical about a utopian left wing ideal. It's quite another to then be a willing attack dog for an establishment that is hell bent on killing any hope of something like it flourishing:

"The Corbyn era certainly has been buried. It was never going to survive its complacency over Boris Johnson, its failure to treat allegations of antisemitism with any urgency, or its years spent umm-ing and ahh-ing over Brexit."

One of those examples was part of a baseless smear campaign (partly on behalf of a foreign state) that the Guardian helped spread, quite deliberately.

It's quite audacious for a newspaper to attack a public figure with a baseless smear campaign and then try to attack them on the basis that they didn't appropriately deal with the smear campaign they helped run.

I liked the famous photo of Einstein, sticking out his tongue.

I suspect he would be heavily downvoted should he be posting in HN (anonymously of course). All in all sad to see him go.

It looks like he was a poster here, but alas, he never commented himself on the Graeber vs Thiel debate or "Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit", his most HN-relevant pieces of work.

I don't see anything wrong with the photo.

"He also got into flamewars on Hacker News"

It's disappointing to see 'flamewar' contexualizxed after 'provoking interesting discussion'. Reading through Graeber's long, contradictory, insult-filled, self-important rants, I'm not sure what would motivate this contextualization.

Normally, I might assume good faith, but Graeber's polemical behavior characterizes both a significant part of his work and a significant part of his participation on his site. The contextualization of this kind of unhinged and hateful behavior as some sort of intellectualism is something I find especially repulsive and pernicious.

Can you provide examples please? I've followed Graeber for years, and this sounds nothing like the person I came to know.

You can refer to dang's link to Graeber's flamewar with Brad DeLong on here. It begins and ends with insults sandwiching a suspiciously uncharitable characterization of the subject.

This suspicion is founded: many of Graeber's claims are also false; in particular, Delong provided a litany of elementary falsehoods in Debt, in which Graeber's inaccurate claim about Apple is merely of especial characteristic inaccuracy--but that's beyond the scope of this post. Zooming back out, if one leads and ends with hateful insults which they cannot justify, that ought to be viewed with deep suspicion. No, DeLong is not a "con-man" who "suckers" people because he wants to call out a book which he feels, and can earnestly argue, is deeply wrong.

Near the end of this long, screenfilling rant, Graeber claims he has been trying to "ignore" DeLong. I didn't know such fits of apoplexy were how you ignored someone.

Well no, here's what Graeber actually said at the end of his comment (emphasis added):

> I've honestly tried to just ignore the guy, hoping he'll eventually go away, but since he won't, I guess I have to explain what's really going on.

That reads like a post-hoc justification to me. Most people practice ignoring people by, well, ignoring them. If they don't, they will explain what's "really going on" by just explaining it, not with prolonged fits of unwarranted and uncharitable apoplexy.

As I described elsewhere, Graeber is also lying when he said he made any serious attempt to ignore DeLong at all.

It's well presented, but can you explain how your argument is fundamentally different from a child shouting "liar?"

Can you go into more detail? Because Graeber's post seems quite convincing, and DeLong fails to coherently reply to the accusations.

Graeber went into detail about why DeLong was impossible to ignore, including DeLong apparently creating a twitter bot to attack Graeber (!!).

I mean, Graeber is right in that he was being trolled. But Graeber lies when he says he tried to ignore DeLong and Graeber lies when he characterizes DeLong as obsessively harping on one inaccuracy.

Graeber's fit of apoplexy wasn't just in that one HN comment. His "ignoring" DeLong was an uninterrupted train of obsessive, one-sided, and often bizarrely misdirected anger and insult. The only "ignoring" was that Graeber, in all his raging against DeLong's trollbot, did not bother do any raging in the form of citing facts or other defense. As DeLong puts it:

> Graeber, of course, makes no attempt to defend his claims in his chapter 12. He doesn't because he can't. Chapter 12 is in fact riddled with errors.... It really appears to be just too easy for people like David Graeber to imagine that they are in a two-month extended conversation where there is a human mind on the other side, when actually they are just the bird pecking itself in the window glass[1].

That incident was a piece in a longer flamewar in which Graeber, essentially, behaves in the obsessive and intellectually bankrupt manner he accused DeLong of behaving.

[1]https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-f...

To be fair to the late Graeber, DeLong was intentionally provoking him from the start. To be fair to DeLong, he was doing it because Graeber had dramatically overreacted to relatively mild critical takes on his work on the Crooked Timber economics blog whose contributors thought his book intellectually stimulating enough to hold a multi-author 'seminar' on it - accusing them of being part of a 'strategy of delegitimization'. Which just goes to show that academic debate can easily head in the same direction as arguments on the rest of the internet.

As for the actual Debt: The First 5000 Years book, it's engaging, thought-provoking, less opinionated than I was expecting and right about a lot of big things. But his critics aren't wrong that it's also wrong about a lot more small details than the founding of Apple Computer (one I'm surprised none of the academic economists scrutinising his book picked up on: he describes Treatise on Money as Keynes 'most famous work' which is akin to calling Wings Paul McCartney's most famous band. That's particularly surprising in the middle of a passage about Keynes' work which is actually well-informed). Still think it's worth reading for people vaguely interested in the subject matter though.

I feel like there's some form of Gell-Mann amnesia here. Why say a book is right about a lot of big things when it is frequently wrong about those things which can be verified?

Because I didn’t read Debt to learn about Apple, and that’s not what I took away from it.

That's deeply disingenuous. It's not like this guy was telling the truth everywhere else. The lies were numerous.

That's what Gell-Mann amnesia is, really: we believe what we want to believe, and forget the quality of the source.

Because I've read other, less entertaining writing on the history of money which concurs with Graeber's central argument that money is much best understood as debt accounting (and some pretty terrible writing about the magical powers of certain metals) and the sloppiness in illustrative anecdotes (or impractical utopian proposals of regular debt jubilees) doesn't really affect that central thesis. I wouldn't necessarily rely on Graeber's colourful anecdotes about historical civilisations or obscure tribes being accurate and uncontroversial without checking what other anthropologists think, but those are 'small picture' things.

I felt much the same way having never heard of Graeber before but being familiar with DeLong. I'm seeing the same from Graeber supporters in the comments shouting down Noah Smith's review of Debt instead of addressing his arguments.

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