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Comment by sam_lowry_ | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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?

Here it goes: http://gesd.free.fr/graeber13.pdf

Thanks!

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 have yet to read his latest book

Well for one, it's not out yet, so all we have are reviews. It is available for pre-order and will be on the 9th of November though.

It is already available on LibGen, I heard ;-)

> third of its content are entertaining passages on tribal societies

he was an anthropologist

Please do not suggest that one of the greatest minds of our era should have adopted the writing style of one of the greatest nitwits of our era.

First off, @pg actually started Hacker News and was instrumental to its long-term success.

Second, @pg 10 years ago is not @pg today. People change, and while his latest essays many not be exceptional neither in style nor in content, texts like "What You'll Wish You'd Known" and "What You Can't Say" have been highly influential well outside SV or even US.

P.S funnily, shortly after "What You'll Wish You'd Known" I saw a viral video of Joanne Rowling saying the same thing @pg was barred from saying at a commencement address: Stay Upwind.

Like I said.

What issues do people have with PG? I also enjoy his later essays.

But I guess he is too rich now, so it is mandatory to hate him?

That and his posts are popular, shared here often. That's really all there is to it. Some appear to believe that writing has to reach the pinnacle of enlightenment to justify popularity.

I do think that when someone is very successful and has a reputation, others are more likely to try to tear them down, maybe from a sense that the success or reputation is not deserved.

With the obscene income & wealth inequality that exists, thanks to our winners-take-all kind of society, there is a lot of resentment towards such people.

If Mr. Graham's essays were written by an unknown, my guess is there would be a smaller proportion of negative reactions, but also far less interest overall.

On what basis are you calling pg a nitwit? What has he actually done to merit such a slight?

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