I concede that deLong gleefully trolled Graeber. And not much more.

Oof not someone else that fell for Brad de Long's bs.

Here's the ceremonial link for whenever this crap is linked:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164707

Wow, I didn't know Graeber posted on HN. May he rest in peace.

I followed the stoush between DeLong and Graeber closely, and my strong impression is that Graeber was thin-skinned, vengeful, often inaccurate and unable to stand criticism. DeLong was a bit trolly, but nothing a competent, stable writer shouldn't have been able to handle. This impression is also borne out by my own reading of Graeber's work, and his reprehensible actions as a working academic:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-one-prominent-journal-...

I have the same impressions of Graeber in this back and forth but it doesn't change the fact that Graeber has a point

I mean making a Twitter bot to spam someone "stay away!" every day seems a lot more thin-skinned and vengeful than Graeber's response here. And Graeber points out that most of the "factual errors" pointed out by DeLong do basically nothing to detract from the main theses Graeber makes in his book.

It's clear DeLong has it out for him and the "takedown" is just a collection of "gotchas" on minor details pasted together to try to attack the overall validity of the book

Another one by Noah Smith, again another left wing economist on why Debt is a poor book :

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/book-review-debt-...

Does Noah Smith consider himself left-wing? I've always tagged him as "right-wing but not totally insane" as he often seems to be explaining bits of reality to his audience who consider them politically incorrect, like renewables and climate change not being a hoax, or him explaining that being 'woke' is okay, as long as you aren't rude to white men.

I think Debt is a terrible book but that's not a convincing or even substantive review. Even more bizzare is the author admitting to dunking on the book without even having read it!