Brian Eno on basic income

[@ShakinJamacian]

Love what he said about not getting a job. It's on point. Why do human beings infer purpose, goals, and necessities - labor, in this case - in a cosmos with no purpose, goals, or necessities? This only promises conflict, for it doesn't flow with reality.

[@SaltVinegar2010]

+ShakinJamacian Yeah its an interesting perspective. It always amazes me how people look down at those on welfare yet will admire a buddhist monk for example. They will call the former "bums", "scroungers" etc. while admiring the latter. Even look at royal families & how much welfare they receive from the population yet people think its ok because they are more deserving of handouts. Crazy world we live in.

[@cheesedie]

i believe we infer purpose because it gives our lives meaning. it is a part of the human condition and our evolutionary biology. having a goal to work towards and subsequently working towards those goals activates the dopamine circuit; a biological incentive reward system. i may have taken your statement out of context - if so i apologise. Also, i am in agreement with Brian on the subject of having a job! it is excellent advice.

[@felipemontero9839]

The world, that is the physical material we live in, has no meaning. But the world we perceive has a meaning because it's human. The human mind is the only place where meaning exists and it provides meaning to whatever falls in it. The onthological status of reality is completly unimportant for what is being discussed here. And so is the biological interpretation of meaning which is wrong. The human mind is able to study biological phenomena, understand it and control it. Urges can, must be and actually are superated with ethics. The basic income is not a pension for nihilistic persons who don't see a point in working but to allow people who see meaning in stuff pursuit the meaninful actions they want.

[@GrantTarredus]

I always come away feeling smarter from merely listening to Eno, whether listening to his work or his thoughts. His insight here is touched on in "Found a Job," which he produced for Talking Heads in 1978. Byrne sings, "If what you do ain't what you love, then something isn't right."

[@squiremuldoon5462]

I was born to poor parents , having to work hard for income has got in the way of my social life, love life and often has stifled my creativity so congratulations to those that never have to worry about that, you have the best gift of all.

[@apzzpa]

I don't think he is saying don't make any income at all, all he could be, rather he's saying don't get a 9 to 5 job. For example, I'm self-employed and work in audio on a freelance basis which offers a decent day rate and allows me to work the hours I want to make a income which allows me to live but also gives me the freedom to work on my art. It's easier said than done though and it also requires you not take on responsibility of a family etc.

[@stephenhurley2737]

This is an important message from Eno and I will recommend to all my students

[@coreycox2345]

Scenuis! I wish I could like this twice.

[@charleskrutzen94]

Exactly. My main job is to do is anything that prevents me from getting a "normal" job :-) . My primary task is making art. And so far (I'm 57) I've succeeded in that. Money is not important for me. However, I live in a country where something like that is possible. The Netherlands.

[@vicesquadpunk]

Charles Krutzen I was intrigued your comment, being in a similar situation myself, I was, however disappointed that your channel appears not to have any content relating to what you do as your, 'main job'....😞

[@ajd626]

This is humbling :)

[@fragranceofsound]

Yes Brian, love what you are saying

[@Johnconno]

I'd like to see Brian Eno on basic income.

[@citizenchris099]

It’s sort of easy for a literal millionaire to have these kinds of opinions.

[@citizenchris099]

@@Johnconno all good bro. I fundamentally agree with the sentiment. I do. I just think that you have to look at how Eno made his "millions" He worked hard. He did. But he also did HIS thing. Not someone else's thing. Which is an important distinction. Most artists need a "patron" that will take care of them while they are up and coming. Statistically most will always need a "patron" A select few "make it" and no longer need said patron.

[@permanentvacations]

he was once, his father was a postman

[@patulja]

I think you need more context to understand what he's talking about - he was asked about Universal Basic Income. This is money that everyone would get and he's in favour of it, because it would allow people to do more of what they love.

[@slimedog]

Scene-ius, so true- what I've thought about the early punk scene. Eno, as always, most intelligent, aware individual of our time.

[@foursevnnn]

YANG GANG

[@tiredastired]

how embarrassing

[@toberschorr736]

This may be triggering for folks, but if we don’t all want to be working class heroes we may want to start thinking outside the box about income

[@cemegonuts]

Yeah... Dream on Brian. In our unregulated corrupt society in every form of government, it can never happen.

[@KaizerMan]

exactly. forget it brian, it's chinatown.

[@the_local_bigamist]

We still have to try. If we all sit around complaining that we're screwed without at least trying to imagine (John Lennon) a different way, then we allow the system to carry on as it does without scrutiny.

[@masterlifeandlove6757]

Create yourself. Create a sole trader business and everything you buy is tax deductible. No income from business? Who cares you make it up from tax cuts and returns. Work on your own project not others. Sure learn from others through being admin etc but u were born with a gift you will give more to cause its ur passion. We need more creators and less haters. Be true to yourself and it will help the world in some way. - Reigns

[@burkhardkiekebusch5742]

angesichts der milliarden-umsätze mit elektronischer musik müssten solche leute wie brian eno, die sich um die elektronische musik ausserordentlich verdient gemacht haben, finanziell ausgesorgt haben .... !!!

[@ThePedroPimenta]

" I think although great new ideas are usually articulated by individuals, they're nearly always generated by communities. And I think what I see is the waste that we make of that possibility of cooperative intelligence. Being an artist you hear a lot of talk about genius, which is the process of singling out certain people in art history and saying "those were the important ones". You know, Picasso, Rembrandt, Shostakovich, whatever. Whenever you look at any of those artists you find that they lived and drew from a very very active flourishing cultural scene, and they were only mone of the elements in that scene. All these people who are called genius actually sat in the middle of something that I call SCENIUS. So just as genius is the creative intelligence of individuals, scenius is the creative intelligence of a community. What I want to see is more attention given to that possibility of creative behaviour. What that means, of course, is two things: One of them is the understanding that all people are born unequal, so everybody has a particular and unique set of gifts and talents, whatever they are. And secondly that intelligence is generated by communities, by cooperation of some king. "

[@GuyPorteous]

thank you Pedro! gracias

[@Deedee-ee1sg]

Very interesting ideas. Perhaps we can persuade all the rich people to donate so more of us who are artists musicians etc and not from well-off background have more opportunities?? I like the idea of Universal Basic income.

[@kicksyyarosh5708]

Maybe-Alan Watts

[@jordil6152]

Art Groups already exist and are inevitable. Human beings are social animals and the like minded will gather towards similar goals and conventions. For better or for worse, /pol/ is this era's Avant Garde. In general Art Groups tend to be a mixed bag and, like any community, are more often heavily intellectually repressive and elitist (Echo Chambers) than liberating (ie. Warhol's Factory). I would say a state financed Art Collective would be more of a hindrance to iconoclasts and progress than the starving artist capitalist model. To the extent that they can spend their own money and do their own marketing and get their ideas out there, which is why so many online artists and KZbinrs are thriving and transcending the old Industry Models, economically, socially and above all, artistically. If you put the Bureaucrats in charge of the purse strings or even allowing them to decide on the gate keepers of Artistic Convention, you will cause stagnation and censorship. We see it all the time on campuses and the products from nationalized grant councils and public broadcasters. It's Dullsville, Daddy-O. Unless Eno is proposing that a basic income would include the financing for everyone to have equal access to all mediums. For example, the State would provide every citizen with a top of the line digital cameras, mics, editing studios, etc., which just isn't feasible. Hence why you would have Bureaucrats and tax funded dictatorial Dilettante Arbiters of Taste who would turn grants, performance + museum spaces and/or air time into their own private playgrounds, just as they've always done within the public sector. Of course the whole 'basic income' idea is shoddy and unsustainable but it's downright naive to think you can maximize your country's artistic community through such a program. Ironically, Eno and his contemporaries had fostered and lead many convention-shattering artistic innovations within the capitalist system. Yet, if he had to appease the Viennese court the way Mozart or Beethoven had, then we wouldn't have had much beyond Roxy Music. If Joseph II wouldn't allow dancing in an opera, what would he make of Music For Airports?

[@beuysproductions]

no sound today?

[@MichaelMolli]

+beuysproductions .. turn up the volume

[@beuysproductions]

+M. Molli some laptoptrubles as it seems.

[@frankwaters8177]

it seems his jacket harks back to early Roxy days.

[@jude999]

Charles Dodgson defined "genius' as that idea which peperetuates through future generartions.

[@octofish]

Sell 1/3 of your life wholesale. Buy the other 2/3 retail.

[@auscomvic9900]

Simon Day has let himself go

[@vandoesselaerewillem9744]

A great mind think's alike ( Rush quote ) .

[@marie-jeannerieg7131]

yes but you are dreaming!!!it is impossible

[@marie-jeannerieg7131]

yes you are right and Ihope very much for it, I pray for it, excuse me my English, is very bad Iam French....

[@thirdpath2259]

Brilliant artist. Talks nonsense here though. How is that going work? Are people going to come and fix your boiler or manage sewerage because they want to?

[@tnekkc]

The first brit colony in the US was at Jamestown 1605. They were organized in a collective and 95% starved to death. They changed to "every house for itself" economic system. The houses were not made entirely of relatives, but mixed survivors. Suddenly the houses prospered and starvation stopped and shipments of wealth back to England ensued. We can surmise that the head of each household dispensed beatings to those who were lazy. As an engineer for 30 years I supervised many people. There is a wide spectrum of motivation. Some can be described as "Works well under constant supervision and trapped like a rat." As creative a musician as Eno is, his collectivism idea is folly. He needs to see where to use the Hobbesian model.

[@felipemontero9839]

In a economy that has little resources the collective must together set the priority of survival. The society eno lives in and we, people talking here on youtube, live in has long been above basic survival needs. And the lack of motivation you mention is one of the things the basic income would fix.

[@ChrisWilliams-nf8kl]

We are moving toward a future where the social wealth MUST be seen more as a collective asset. This isn't an anti capitalist point (but perhaps a post capitalist one). Production jobs are going to disappear as more robots equipped with more sophisticated intelligence comes on stream. But production then entirely in the hands of the few who might own all these worker robots will still need a market. A populace without reasonable disposable income equals a collapse in the market for the producers, so that it will no longer be viable to simply hold on to ever increasing profit and ever greater share of the income within a society. As for 'scenius' I've often thought the Beatles as a gestalt intelligence [perhaps also with the contribution of George Martin], quite neatly turned the idea of the individualist 'great' on its head. Looking back through history it is remarkable how many instances there are of great discoveries and great inventions which are occurring concurrently and independently. In more recent times many of the celebrated discoveries are the product of teams, yet there's still a tendency to pick out individuals as totems of these things. All this is simply 'culture'. Culture is the wealth of intellectual capital we all inherit simply by being born into our social setting. This is not just the background library of all the great ideas that are bequeathed down the generations, but the very language we use to articulate, frame and develop anything we do with them. Ego makes us think of ourselves as somehow gods that generate massive fields of intellectual activity - yet the greatest of us are simply stirring the stock of human intelligence and recombining a few of its ingredients. We do need to recognise that human intelligence is a collective endeavour, not simply confined to our living generation, but to the whole collective mass of humanity. It's not simply the thing that expresses humanity's worth - it is humanity's worth. And it belongs to all of us. Brian Eno is a great thinker and the ideas he's expressing need to have more purchase in the collective consciousness. It is only when humanity recognises the thing it is that we will be able to achieve our potential and ensure our survival. Any objective observer of human culture would see any enduring human work as a product of humanity. We need - all of us - to grasp that at a conscious level. This is what transcends mortality.

[@Fieldson1977]

So stupid. We have enough great artists. It takes all types to make this world work. “Basic Income” means productivity needs to come from somewhere, and the workers of this world really don’t find it fair to have to pay for a bunch of shitty wanna be artist to “create” and not pull their own weight. If you’re exceptionally good at the arts, then by all means pursue it. But you’re not going to take from others because you don’t want to be bothered with a job. B.E. even says himself in this video he knows next to nothing about implementing a “basic income” I agree. He Likely doesn’t know anything. So, stick to being an artist. Three questions for people who think like this: Where are your facts? As Compared to what? And, At what Cost? Basic income will work fine, until the day you run out of someone else’s money

[@multiplepersonalities2304]

Bach led a fairly isolated life.

[@tonegoober]

And yet he wrote music completely informed and influenced by his peers and predecessors...

[@simplestickman5513]

yeah, playing organ in a church and having what? 8 siblings 😂

[@markhanlon7742]

Exactly mr eno you will never know the concept of the word basic, ive listened to your music in the past while living on a budget my pillow slips were bought on a budget, and I hate anything elitist, aswell as the ponsy art world, that know one around me I know benefits from, they mainly work hard with there hands to carve out an excistence, put that in your pipe.

[@chrisnagy1429]

I am too tired from working right now to respond to a rich Catholic, but I might in the future debate him. I love Eno, but he is talking about utopianism which unless you are Tony who worked for th Library of Congress, few of us could afford.

[@nicktaylor5264]

Trouble is, the purpose of the property market is to force people to work. There is a profound contradiction in providing a UBI at the same time as still allowing landlords to exist. Another problem with UBI is it locks "the market" into our life-support system, and the market does a really bad job of this, because the whole thing is optimised for extracting rather than providing value. UBS is a better system I think... but really, with models of land-ownership which give one group of people power over another, evil is always going to prevail.

[@simonineaston]

I'm trying to imagine the current Tory cabinet, listening to this talk, in an effort to think up ideas to kick-start the UK, post Covid... poor me, with my small, Winnie The Pooh-like brain - I can't do it! Help Me, Somebody

[@rockbarcellos]

At least he was humble enough to recognize he hasn't thought about it that much. Sorry to say though Brian, but state based policies like that are unethical. State is coercion, taxation is theft.

[@BenWeeks-ca]

As Locke points out there are places you can live and not pay tax. But we stay because we're willing to be governed by consent. In exchange we get police, healthcare, military, roads, building codes, urban planning, environmental protection, law, tap water, sewer systems, electricity, postal service and fire departments. All are imperfect, but to many people these are preferable to tribal subsistence living. If you have the money to build an off-grid paradise, that's great but it's only because the above systems were used to build your wealth. And at that point it's selfish to not contribute-which would be unethical.

[@FernieCanto]

"State is coercion, taxation is theft." Thank you! After all, why would I want a properly constructed worldview based on facts and human perception, when I can get all my opinions in the form of predigested slogans? Yeah, forget Eno's entire line of reasoning! If I can't get all my knowledge in six words or less, then I won't even bother.

[@BenWeeks-ca]

lol. Yes it's funny to see people jump at the opportunity to prove (to themselves) that they're smarter than an artist who has facilitated delightful work for decades. :)

[@rockbarcellos]

Ben Weeks I didn't meant to do an essay right here on youtube at all, I really just made a quick statement in response to Brian's, but aparently it was enough to cause a butthurt... But since you asked, let's do it then: Where's there's no choice there's no morality, we all would clearly see that if any other person or entity tried to get money from you "for social benefits" without giving you choice wether to do it or not that this is unethical and unacceptable as a way of behaving in society, but not for the state... why? Are the state agents above normal human beings? Are they enlightened beings or something? Coercion is coercion no matter who does it and why, and it is wrong. Regarding services that society needs, people can come to solutions voluntarily in a free market of ideas and services. Equating taxes to voluntary pay for a service is just not accurate, a cellphone company can't force you to pay for it's product, while a state agent can use force against you if you refuse to pay for state taxes for services that you've never been given the option to refuse to take or not. If you want to know more about that subject read Murray Rothbard, Stefan Molyneux, Hans Herman Hoppe, Walter Block. You're welcome.

[@rockbarcellos]

Fernie Canto Read above.

[@richardlaversuch2901]

Individuals make history, Churchill, Thatcher etc.

[@RasberrySkittle]

Individuals shaped out of culture, or"sceneous" make history. No single individual would be able to do anything without a place and context.