The Utopia of Rules: Technology, Stupidity and Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (2015) | Hacker News Reader

The Utopia of Rules: Technology, Stupidity and Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (2015)

theguardian.com

44 pointsFinnLobsien11 comments

Inspired by this book, I wrote my bachelor thesis on the emotional experience of bureaucracy. I sent it to Graeber and he actually read it and replied. What a class act. R.I.P.

Read this book last year and, like all of Graeber’s writing, enjoyed it very much despite it going in completely different directions than what I anticipated.

That's what I love about his writing. He hurts my mind in that delightful learning to think differently kinda way.

Yep—and it's enjoyable even when you disagree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything

I loved it

R.I.P Mr Graeber. What a gem of a thinker.

Agreed. I frequently disagree with his conclusions, but he never fails to make me see things in a new light.

One of the few academics who was willing to propose radically new ideas which nobody had an economic incentive to pursue.

There’s a really good mini essay on Batman and the Joker as capitalist versus artist in one of the later chapters.

I'm not sure the author really understood Debt or Graeber's thinking more broadly. It's far more nuanced than the state being the cause of all evil. He never said that debt originated with imperial governments or that humans don't have a capacity for violence. There's also many different approaches to criticizing states and equating anarchism with neo-liberalism is very silly.

> What Graeber fails to recognise is that the view of the state he advances also has something in common with that of neoliberals, who, like him, see state power as the root of all social ills.

No, actually. Neoliberals think that private commerce is more efficient than the state. This author knows f-all about the words he's using.

> together with their fear – entirely realistic – that, if they were given the chance, enemies of the revolution would overthrow the new regime and liquidate its leaders

Which is exactly what happened, given enough time.

> Why you can rely on the Guardian not to bow to Trump – or anyone

Oh, Jesus. That's a non sequitur.

> > Why you can rely on the Guardian not to bow to Trump – or anyone

> Oh, Jesus. That's a non sequitur.

It's not part of the article—in fact, it doesn't even show up for me. The Guardian often inserts fundraising pleas after articles; the author of the article has no more say over them, especially years after the fact, than over the "related stories" that are also linked.

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