cory on pirates
Graeber’s Pirate Enlightment — Cory Doctorow with Graham Culbertson
on david graeber‘s pirate enlightenment via nika dubrovsky here:
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1622339630082232320
links to 1 hr podcast of cory doctorow on everyday anarchism [https://www.everydayanarchism.com/] [https://www.everydayanarchism.com/graebers-pirate-enlightment-cory-doctorow/]
notes/quotes:
7 min – graham: this podcast inspired by a lot but mostly by david graeber.. and your talk on debt.. what drew you to graeber?
cory: joe walton.. she wrote a thing asking why are all sci fi writers writing about debt now
10 min – c: then i helped him out w his launch of bs jobs.. then he died.. then i’ve been helping his widow with lit legacy
bs jobs from birth et al
11 min – g: i thought he was the best voice during covid.. his voice could never been more important right then.. and then gone
12 min – c: he was such a keen observer.. utopia of rules.. on fetish for paperwork.. has produced life where all you do is fill out forms.. orwellian ness on reading the fine print docs
utopia of rules backwards et al
14 min – g: his willingness to point out disastrous effects of progressivism.. rules invented to keep bezos doing what he’s doing.. and now all of us beholden to that except bezos..
16 min – c: one area david and i disagreed was on ubi.. i think we have enough labor to provide employment for everyone for next 300 yrs.. i don’t think we live in fully automated luxury based.. i think it would be desperately premature to abandon productivism. we need to do a lot more with a lot less..t i would say let’s have a universal jobs guarantee.. my new book .. the lost cause.. really gets into this.. library socialism
oi.. graeber min\max law..
gershenfeld something else law et al
perhaps let’s try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence w/ubi as temp placebo.. where legit needs are met w/o money.. till people forget about measuring
imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
19 min – g: this is a point you and i are in complete agreement.. (copyright ness).. can’t start with .. give artists their rights..
20 min – g: haven’t seen critiques yet.. am assuming romantic fantasy.. we’ve been fed reading of history.. doe.. something new we can work with and think about.. we’re not getting that anywhere else
c: i think fantasy is wrong way to talk about it.. i think what wengrow and david did with dawn.. and what he’s doing here (pirates) is: here are some ways of joining the dots..
22 min – c: i think graeber’s point.. is if you go to places where people live like we imagined.. days of origin of man.. you find people who have diff arrangements.. lots of ways.. like today.. and it would be amazing if over the years.. we’d invent a bunch of ways.. i think in pirate enlightenment.. he’s saying.. well the book is an edited revision of his doctoral thesis.. of those living in madagascar.. liminal between exile and retirement and inter married w locals and created a new culture.. at time.. madagascar was a kind of way station.. one thing written is that people who visited the islands.. met these pirate kings.. and in fact.. these accounts turned into nonfiction accounts.. by leading fiction writers.. became part of our cultural vocab ‘this is how pirates lived’.. this is where idea of pirates raping/murdering.. we also know pirates writing for selves.. describing very diff life aboard ship.. anarchist.. anti authoritarian.. extremely democratic.. et al.. so they were anarchist weirdos.. these journals record that lots of sailors wanted to be pirates.. brutal violent life under naval officers.. left british naval captains and lived good/happy life.. so this sets scene.. so descendants record/recall.. they were having a laugh.. they made it all up.. ‘i’ll pretend to be king.. you pretend to be servants’.. anthros
30 min – c: so have this graeber book.. as he was among them .. not enough to observe but have to participate to have meaning.. david is definitely participating.. recording what they say et al .. and comes to conclusion that anarchist pirates were doing something like the enlightenment.. madagascar society was matriarchal and feminist.. why don’t we believe that as well.. he’s not making it up.. so not a fantasy..
34 min – c: (g keeps wanting to call it a fantasy) i think diff between plausible explanation and a hypothesis.. person who says it doesn’t necessarily think it’s true.. none grounded in evidence.. just plausible.. (on graeber).. still haven’t proved it.. but not merely possible.. he lived among people for years.. they described in detail.. he checked out those details.. and said.. if this is the case.. i think it’s try.. that’s an hypothesis
37 min – g: i think i’m more skeptical of his belief that it’s true.. i see no reason to doubt it.. but it seems to me more plausible.. than verified
c: i think one of things graeber wants us to understand.. the orthodox character nature of history is that it’s grounded in fact.. but it’s no diff .. indistinguishable from all other stories.. in doe.. this diff ways of indigenous critique.. graeber and wengrow take it all the way back and show they do it now and then.. and matches all records.. i think that’s why they were such a pair.. anthro and archo.. et al
indigenous critique et al
41 min – g: david makes these moves all over the book.. showing how things said impossible could happen
43 min – c: people.. including graeber.. are unreliable narrators.. but he’s showing.. all of our knowledge probably isn’t equally shaky.. but it’s all shaky.. showing that we have freedom to invent society..
45 min – c: even in moments that are hugely constrained.. always room for human agency.. graeber says.. if it’s happened before.. we can do it again
oi.. we don’t want to do what we’v done in past.. we want something legit diff.. graeber make it diff law et al.. legit diff
ie: a nother way (org around legit needs sans any form of m\a\p)
48 min – (govt ness section.. oi)
52 min – g: graeber said what was weird about them is that they were democratic..
still violence.. any form democratic admin
55 min – g: (reads quote).. xii ‘let us tell story about magic..’
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be you. 