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Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

reuters.com

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Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#511

Post by EQmWgw87pw »

angiolillo wrote: post #487
misja111 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People seem to think only money has value. Your either don't understand or don't want to understand what people are commenting about here. Of course nobody thinks that only money has value. If only money had value, why would anybody exchange money for, say, a bread? What many people are wondering about, is whether the value of the money paid by tax payers to artists, equals the value of what they give to the tax pa…

> one might wonder why they apparently are not able to sell their art for the same amount of money "Public goods" like parks, museums, bridges, roadways, transit, nature preserves, community spaces, and public safety services produce both direct value to their immediate users as well as substantial diffuse value to their community. Direct value can be captured by user fees, tolls, subscriptions, etc but capturing dif…

Your argument makes sense, but a park has a measurable scope. We all want it to be X sqft, with Y trees, and it will cost Z dollars. Are you going to force artists to make the specific art that the community is in need of, or can they just do nothing?

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#512

Post by philipallstar »

jjgreen wrote: post #346
philipallstar wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is generally how we describe value.

Love, honesty, kindness, ..., none of these have value?

Of course they do. I'm not saying it's the only way to measure value as individuals. But as a society, lots of things do boil down to money, as that's the medium of exchange. Society was the context of this thread, not individual.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#513

Post by _heimdall »

BSDobelix wrote: post #460
_heimdall wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing the idea of basic income would be a good thing. It will never work and would leave a society in much the same situation as other past attempts at Marxism.

>Killing the idea of basic income would be a good thing. Maybe we have a different look on basic income, for me it's like unemployment money with less steps and less overhead (less bureaucrats). I also dont know why you pull in marxism, but those systems normally starve because of bureaucrats (hello germany) where you have to fill out 10 papers to create one praline, and NO i dont say germany is "marxist", but they a…

I raise Marx because going from people having what they earn to having what they need was pretty fundamental to the utopia he envisioned. A UBI is a huge step in that direction, complete with a state given the power to decide what we need and control distribution of resources. I'd expect the state would eventually need to take control of the means of production to stabilize the system, another big step towards Marxism.

If all work is done by robots we have much bigger challenges than who spends money. We need to consider how to counter dynamics and incentives that might favor having fewer humans dependent on the system, for example. We also need to consider how we avoid either humans losing control entirely or human control being massively centralized to a small group of people running everything.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#514

Post by akudha »

amichal wrote: post #497
akudha wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People throughout Wales sing this song 130 years later I wonder how far are we from a song that is entirely generated by AI and becomes as loved as a song created by a human, and is still sung/played by people decades later? It feels weird to even think about it. If AI does get as good as humans at creating art (I think it might), what happens then? Will human generated art be still as respected/valuable? Will humans…

I wonder, can we not turn all threads into a "when will AI do this creative thing better than humans". Humans need basic income (or at least resources) and to have culturally valuable work to do. Art and craft esp as a form of human expression seems like we should ASSUME that humans want to do this, that we as a society value the human energy that goes into it.

Yes, humans want to make art. But most humans would also want their art to be seen, appreciated at minimum. Would be nice if they can make a living out of it.

I am not trying to turn all threads into AI debate, but AI threat to art is a legit concern. If AI mass produces art at comparable quality level to humans, it would be near impossible for humans to compete for other humans' attention. If nobody sees my art, would I still make art? Maybe some humans will, because creating art makes them happy and they don't care if anyone sees their art or not. But many humans will give up

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#515

Post by _heimdall »

danlitt wrote: post #446
_heimdall wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price inflation isn't the only type of inflation. Monetary inflation was historically the "inflation" people focused on, and given that Ireland runs a deficit in their state budget this would be adding to the debt and inflating the money supply.

> given that Ireland runs a deficit in their state budget is this true? Last I heard Ireland ran a surplus for the last 5 years or so.

Well I'll be damned, I stand corrected! I had looked that up before posting and must have misread the a chart showing a slight surplus as shoeing a slight deficit instead.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#516

Post by _heimdall »

whiplash451 wrote: post #463
_heimdall wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing then would only be a short term chicken and egg problem. If, once established, a thriving art scene generates value by attracting tourism, wealthy individuals who want to patronize the arts, etc then the artists would be able to charge enough to fund themselves and potentially do very well for themselves. In that scenario we'd only need to fully subsidize artists for a short period of time, the…

> we'd only need to fully subsidize artists for a short period of time That's literally how it works (at least in France). The government sponsors artists early on. Those who make it big don't need the gov sponsoring (and lose eligibility to it). Those who don't continue to receive the sponsoring. Some artists take a very long time to pan out (some way after their death) so it makes little sense to cut funding to art…

Does it make sense for the government to fund artists indefinitely though, if the argued value is related to tourism, patronage, etc?

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#517

Post by EQmWgw87pw »

komali2 wrote: post #472
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s “corporate masters” got to do with a transaction from taxes and inflation (stolen value on your savings and spending power) to a handout?

If you think taxation is theft, wait till I show you some fat margins on labor value.

Do you think people would do the following arrangement; work for free until the business becomes profitable (which could be never), but then get a much higher share of the labor margin?

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#518

Post by micromacrofoot »

qualitylearing wrote: post #420
jimnotgym wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it divides them into people that create cultural wealth and people who create mere monetary wealth. So you do agree that art should be supported by government I see, so how would you do it?

[dead]

Guess what helps provides a reason for people to want to keep the world running?

We've seen what happens to pieces of the world that prioritize economic production over everything else, and it isn't pretty. We have a number of laws and regulations preventing that sort of production at all costs behavior.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#519

Post by bagacrap »

nvader wrote: post #340
philipallstar wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is generally how we describe value.

Almost all religions, a good chunk of philosophy and even a good bit of economics would differ with you. I hope you find out before it's too late.

Pretty patronizing, but I'll bite.

I think we as a society strive to make gp correct that money is representative of value, and rightfully so.

Anyone partaking in any activity that has value to others should be given money. That is literally what this basic income/tax break for artists is for. Someone thought producing art had value and pure capitalism wasn't correctly matching that value with monetary rewards.

There are lots of rich churches and church leaders out there. That's because they serve a human need, and those humans are willing to direct some of their finite resources towards that provider. (I'm talking about the collections plate if you didn't catch that.)

Now obviously money on its own is not value. It should represent value that you delivered to someone else in the past, and is helpful for getting whatever value your life needs. You mentioned philosophy --- that yoga retreat in the Andes isn't free, is it?

Now sometimes we muddy the waters, for example we permit lotteries where the winner takes home a good deal of money without providing any value to anyone. That debases money, and I think it has no part in society, but I'm unfortunately swimming against the tide on that one.

Re: Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists

#520

Post by urschrei »

raffraffraff wrote: post #249

My wife is an artist and she absolutely hates this. For a start, it's a lottery. 2000 randomers who call themselves artists will get no-questions-asked income regardless of their skill or importance as artists. We have people who are full time carers for family members who get less money in their allowance, and it's means-tested. So you can be a millionaire heir / heiress, independently wealthy and still be eligible…

My partner is an artist and she absolutely loves this.

For a start, it's a lottery. 2000 people who meet very broad but generally fair eligibility criteria (https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...) will get no-questions-asked income regardless of their skill or importance as artists, these being qualities that are both highly subjective and not fixed in time.

So you can be anyone – rich, poor, or something in between – and still be eligible for it. All you have to do is meet the criteria, which were created in consultation with artists.

Also, what is an artist? Thankfully that's not for me to say, because I have quite a narrow view of what art is, and that view would certainly exclude some people who were successful in the pilot.

My partner has been struggling to make an income from her art for over a decade. As she is a working artist under the pilot definition, she qualifies for the lottery even though she runs a small business (to be precise, she's self-employed – making and selling her art full time. There is a reasonable chance that you have seen it). She also thinks that the government could take many other practical steps steps to make life easier for artists, but that taking a small amount of money and giving it to random artists has a huge potential upside: practically no effort, many benefits.

I know several artists whose paintings will genuinely be hanging on walls for hundreds of years. Or prints. Or photographs. Most make ends meet, and one or two are comfortable. Their work ranges from truly amazing to decidedly mediocre (in my opinion). Did any of them get this magic lottery? Yes, some did. Others (including my partner) did not.

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