I just figured like, if I could only get one future technology,
I could get the Longevity one and then for I'd live long enough to see the other ones.
Welcome to LSE IQ.
I'm Sue Windy-Bank and this is the podcast where we ask social scientists and other experts to answer one intelligent question.
This episode is dedicated to David Graber, LSE Professor of Anthropology, who died unexpectedly in September this year.
David was a public intellectual, a best-selling author, an influential activist and anarchist.
He took aim at the pointless bureaucracy of modern life, memorably coining the term bullshit jobs and his book,
Debt the First 5,000 Years, was turned into a radio series by the BBC.
But David started his academic career studying Madagascar.
Anthropology interested him, he said, because he was interested in human possibilities,
including the potential of societies to organise themselves without the need for a state,
as he had seen in his own research.
He was also a well-known anti-globalisation activist and a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
David was generous enough to do an interview for us in 2016, when LSE IQ was in its infancy.
That episode asked, what's the future of work?
And in his interview, he reflected on the disappointments of technology, pointless jobs and caring labour.
David was such an interesting speaker that we would have liked to have used more of it at the time,
but we didn't have the space.
Now it feels right to bring you a lightly edited version of the interview.
David didn't get the longevity technology that he wished for in the clip that we played at the start of this podcast,