David Graeber: On Bureaucratic Technologies & the Future as Dream-Time / 01.19.2012 @ SVA
Debate “Where did the Future Go?” with Peter Thiel
19 Sept 2014
David Graeber vs. Peter Thiel: Where Did the Future Go?
Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and David Graeber debate barriers to technology.
The debate was mediated by John Summers, then-editor of The Baffler, and hosted by The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen in New York City.
The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen was founded in 1785. It is a tiny, elite (and free) private education institution.
There are similarities between start-ups and anarchist starter-groups. To what degree can you work inside the existing institutions? Is direct democracy too complicated and bureaucratic? The technological stagnation since 1970s might be due to the fusion of government power and finance power into the system of rent extraction, even if there are pockets of people who can turn the system against itself.
Review
https://bellriotsreview.substack.com/p/david-graeber-vs-peter-thiel-on-innovation