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Comment by m463 | Hacker News Reader

As a much better alternative, I would recommend "debt" by david graeber, which is amazing.

Is your comment perhaps in reference to the comment ‘ the assumptions and estimates that go into it, I recommend Financial Intelligence by Joe Knight and Karen Berman’ and not the parent comment you’ve replied to?

lol, good guess. I must have clicked wrong - I thought I was replying to the comment "this is bad, don't read it"

Graeber is controversial. Archeologists hate how he argues by ad hominem and does not appear to understand the works he cites, to make his argument.

I can't speak to his work on finance as a whole. Regarding deep time, his claims about pre-literate society from archeology are not widely supported, they use thin evidence to argue badly.

His anarcho-socialism isn't the concern. It's his lack of historicity, and inability to bring his peers with him on radical ideas which concerns me.

He's dead, he can't defend himself. So there's that.

Just in case anyone is put off by this comment, I want to second the recommendation of Debt: The First 5000 Years. It's excellent, and it has as a free, chapter-by-chapter audiobook on YouTube.

As for Graeber being controversial: yes, though I vaguely recall "The Dawn of Everything" being (moreso) the trove of interesting historical anthropological hypotheses, rather than "Debt"?

Anyway, it's been a while, but my main point is that I wouldn't let Graeber's controversial-ness stop anyone from reading Debt. If anything, going in with that information makes you think harder about the topics he covers.

I totally agree. He writes well. I think the dawn of everything is a good read, and I will read debt, but without wanting to give in totally to 'appeal to authority' I think you have to recognise Graeber didn't win friends.

I think you'll enjoy it. My impression is he'd have won more friends with Debt than he did with the Dawn of Everything. Perhaps not literally, but I do remember thinking Debt made stronger cases on average, and was more philosophical than creatively-antagonistic in its weaker evidence parts.

Fun fact, David Graeber had an HN account: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=davidgraeber

I was interested to read that. Thanks. I think aspects of his personality came out in that, but also the horrible truth that "public intellectuals" become targets for many people. I have no doubt if some of the names I have catcalled on HN like Malcom Gladwell or Ray Kurzeweil were online in HN they'd be coming in for some flack, from people like me (with lesser chops, but a lot of opinion about them, as public intellectuals)

I saw this in the flesh at a book festival. Dale Spender, a notable feminist author who moved sideways into IT tech (she was involved with online learning systems) did a book talk and the majority of questions from the audience were "Gotcha" attempts about here philosophy and feminism, with nothing to do with the subject at hand.

As a fan of Graeber, I’m interesting in reading counter arguments to his writing. Could you point out where I can read up more about what archaeologists think of his writing?

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3wc3p3hf

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