david on batshit ness
via nika dubrovsky in museum of care email thread about david graeber‘s bs jobs from birth ness [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jq8xphKe1_J5qStuzXLbfZd5nyvXCs_tl3Y4lY3KB2Q/edit]
notes/quotes from nika’s doc:
I would like to clear up a misunderstanding: David did not plan to write a book about how construction workers (even those who build unnecessary infrastructure) did BullshitJobs. His goal was quite different. He wanted to show that there is an entire line of human activitiy that is BATSHIT.
This batshit direction of our society is just as destructive and violent, in a moral sense for our society as a whole, but also in a very material sense for the environment and the entire system — we are very likely to be dead if it continues. This is what David wrote about it (see notes/quotes bottom of page) [https://www.bigissue.com/opinion/david-graeber-to-save-the-world-were-going-to-have-to-stop-working/]
..
In the case of Arizona bridge the BatshitConstruction and BullshitJobs connection is very clear — it’s our society’s beliefs in sacred value of work, in the necessity to expand, to compete that lead to the need to find ways to keep people busy.
any form of people telling other people what to do.. any form of m\a\p
That’s what must be changed.
In some ways this is an even bigger David project than BJ.
He won’t accomplish it anymore, but others might.
I feel we should help.
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental expo labeling).. to facil a legit global detox leap.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of m\a\p
ie: a nother way
..
It’s about the extent to which we as a society can form an opinion about the existence of entire industries – that Battshit (not bullshit- specifically crushingly destructive!) and stop them from ever existing.
To do that, we need to rethink our values.
and/or.. just let go enough to listen to and trust what’s already bn – on each heart..
need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature as global detox/re\set.. so we can org around legit needs
ie: 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 as nonjudgmental expo labeling)
That’s when the revolution will happen.
notes/quotes from david’s piece (2020) – David Graeber: ‘To save the world, we’re going to have to stop working’ [https://www.bigissue.com/opinion/david-graeber-to-save-the-world-were-going-to-have-to-stop-working/]:
Writing as part of Jarvis Cocker’s Big Issue takeover before his untimely death earlier this month, David Graeber explains his confusion about why we’d destroy the planet if we don’t have to
Our society is addicted to work. If there’s anything left and right both seem to agree on, it’s that jobs are good. Everyone should have a job. Work is our badge of moral citizenship. We seem to have convinced ourselves as a society that anyone who isn’t working harder than they would like to be working, at something they don’t enjoy, is a bad, unworthy person. As a result, work comes to absorb ever greater proportions of our energy and time.
yeah.. to kilpi work law.. and refusal of work and abolition of work.. and world w/o work.. and supposed to’s of school/work et al.. and to me.. even deeper .. ie: even takes a lot of work as cancerous distraction
Much of this work is entirely pointless. Whole industries (think telemarketers, corporate law, private equity) whole lines of work (middle management, brand strategists, high-level hospital or school administrators, editors of in-house corporate magazines) exist primarily to convince us there is some reason for their existence. Useless work crowds out useful (think of teachers and administrators overwhelmed with paperwork); it’s also almost invariably better compensated. As we’ve seen in lockdown, the more obviously your work benefits other people, the less they pay you
The system makes no sense. It’s also destroying the planet. If we don’t break ourselves of this addiction quickly we will leave our children and grandchildren to face catastrophes on a scale which will make the current pandemic seem trivial.
and today we have the means for a legit global detox leap.. for (blank)’s sake
If this isn’t obvious, the main reason is we’re constantly encouraged to look at social problems as if they were questions of personal morality. All this work, all the carbon we’re pouring into the atmosphere, must somehow be the result of our consumerism; therefore to stop eating meat or dream of flying off to beach vacations. But this is just wrong. It’s not our pleasures that are destroying the world. It’s our puritanism, our feeling that we have to suffer in order to deserve those pleasures.
*If we want to save the world, we’re going to have to stop working.
graeber job\less law: ‘if there’s ever a sign that a society is designed stupidly.. it’s that the prospect of manual labor being eliminated is a problem. if we don’t know what to do with freedom and liberty.. that’s pretty messed up‘ – david graeber (can’t find original source just now)
Seventy per cent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide comes from infrastructure: energy, transport, construction. Most of the rest is produced by industry. Meanwhile 37 per cent of British workers feel if their jobs are entirely unnecessary; if they were to vanish tomorrow, the world would not be any the worse off. Simply do the maths. If those workers are right, we could massively reduce climate change just by eliminating bullshit jobs.
true.. but not deep enough.. because again.. takes a lot of work ness still remains
So that’s proposal one.
Proposal two: batshit construction. An enormous amount of building today is purely speculative: all over the world, governments collude with the financial sector to create glittering towers that are never occupied, empty office buildings, airports that are never used. Stop doing this. No one will miss them.
Proposal three: planned obsolescence. One of the main reasons we have such high levels of industrial production is that we design everything to break, or to become outmoded and useless in a few years’ time. If you build an iPhone to break in three years you can sell five times as many than if you make it to last 15, but you also use five times the resources, and create five times the pollution. Manufacturers are perfectly capable of making phones (or stockings, or light bulbs) that wouldn’t break; in fact, they actually do – they’re called ‘military grade’. Force them to make military-grade products for everyone. We could cut down greenhouse gas production massively and improve our quality of life.
rather.. deeper.. 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..ie: sabbatical ish transition
These three are just for starters. If you think about it, they’re really just common sense. Why destroy the world if you don’t have to?
If addressing them seems unrealistic, we might do well to think hard about what those realities are that seem to be forcing us, as a society, to behave in ways that are literally mad.
this is ridiculous ness and this is not ridiculous ness and to the ridiculous ness et al
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from same email thread: jason and branko on degrowth
after reading above 4 links.. i replied to email thread:
to me.. what we haven’t yet tried:
‘just a bunch of humans who contain infinite creativity, love and capabilities to build different worlds..kinda common sense and straight forward.’.. john
‘to max unexpected breakthroughs.. get a bunch of people give them resources they need.. leave them alone; to min unexpected breakthroughs.. take same people tell them they won’t get any resources unless they spend the majority of their time competing to prove they already know what they’re going to create.. one thing not scarce in world.. is imaginative people w possible solutions to intractable problems‘ david
because we keep thinking:
‘I do not disagree with Branko that the task is enormous‘ jason
so we:
‘attempt to present some back-of the-envelope calculations that should be improved very much in a serious attempt to examine the alternatives.’ branko
which circles us back around in the cycle of violence (same song):
‘when one looks a little closer, one discovers that these two elements—the violence and the quantification—are intimately linked‘ david
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next reply:
‘ if our environment does not allow us to develop mastery in areas where our interests and talents intersect we can finangle it by accumulating wealth and/or power’ christian
huge..
ie: ‘we have to build a society that looks more like Rat Park and less like a rat race/cage’ – johann hari (via bruce alexander et al.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park)..
otherwise..
‘we have created a society where huge numbers of our fellow citizens can’t bear to be present in their lives and have to medicate themselves to get through the day‘ Johann Hari
‘these cynical groups..step in and actively groom/provide whatever it is that our young people are lacking in their lives.. these groups try to fill those gaps‘ – deeyah khan on jihadi ness and white supremacist ness
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some talking of folly as batshitness [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folly]: In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings..As a general term, “folly” is usually applied to a small building that appears to have no practical purpose or the purpose of which appears less important than its striking and unusual design, but the term is ultimately subjective, so a precise definition is not possible
then via alex: I’d also like to counter the idea that a folly is equal to a bridge to nowhere. A folly is not useless because it is beautiful (and some are useable. I just saw one today here in France that could very easily become a small house). A modern bridge to nowhere is ugly and useless.
great point.. but i’d say.. we need to let go of claiming anything to be anything.. because we have no idea what legit free people are like (so .. hari rat park law) and if we did.. i’m thinking we wouldn’t have the need/desire/time to claim/label
and now to p 99 in simone weil‘s gravity and grace:
The subject of science is the beautiful (that is to say order, proportion, harmony) in so far as it is suprasensible and necessary.
oi.. to the little prince – see with your heart ness.. and need for nonjudgmental expo labeling.. and to carhart-harris entropy law and to iwan baan ness et al..
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also read understanding patriarchy because of john’s comments/ref in thread
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be you. 