Brian Eno, interviewed by Georgina Godwin for Episode 817 of podcast The Briefing, 18:55 (26 December 2014)
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I'm always concerned about, more than anything else, the waste of human potential. ... So much intelligence is wasted from poverty. People who simply don't have the time, the space to use their imaginations. They can't be creative, because to be creative requires that, for a little while at least, you let go of the basic concerns of staying alive—you can't really be creative if survival is the primary topic on your mind. And so I've been thinking about that for a long time, thinking how do we utilize the cumulative intelligence and creativity of people? And recently I heard of ... a very simple idea, ... which is: give everyone some money every week. No matter how rich they are, how poor they are, just make sure that there's a basic income level beyond which people don't fall. ... I like the idea that it says we believe that all people are potentially creative and that they should be given the chance to express that.

— Brian Eno on Basic income

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I'm always concerned about, more than anything else, the waste of human potential. ... So much intelligence is wasted from poverty. People who simply don't have the time, the space to use their imaginations. They can't be creative, because to be creative requires that, for a little while at least, you let go of the basic concerns of staying alive—you can't really be creative if survival is the primary topic on your mind. And so I've been thinking about that for a long time, thinking how do we utilize the cumulative intelligence and creativity of people? And recently I heard of ... a very simple idea, ... which is: give everyone some money every week. No matter how rich they are, how poor they are, just make sure that there's a basic income level beyond which people don't fall. ... I like the idea that it says we believe that all people are potentially creative and that they should be given the chance to express that." in the context of "Brian Eno, interviewed by Georgina Godwin for Episode 817 of podcast The Briefing, 18:55 (26 December 2014)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Basic income" (E) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Brian Eno

About Brian Eno

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (born 15 May 1948), commonly referred to simply as Eno, is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.