I love Alain de Botton's writing but every time he says a company is trying to "fix a deep psychological need" what he is actually saying is "monetise deep philosophical needs" and that is terrifying to me.
He's often reasonable sounding, but in this talk he isn't. What I see here is a certain way to monetize his own power of suggestion. Talkers will look to get paid to talk where the pay is the most profitable. Capitalism 101.
@@Mishkafofer It's the fact that Disneyland and other such "monetization of needs" are so captivating that they can be terrifying. But Disneyland is a fairly harmless example.
Too many offers he couldn’t refuse. He’s selling out to the tech sector, one of the most libertarian, anti-social industries on Earth today. And that’s saying something given a fossil fuel industry happy to send us into climate collapse by booking more FF reserves than we could possibly burn and stay under 3 °C. And 2 °C is going to be catastrophic.
i hope those corporations first make their employees happy first. your boss telling you "make that person happy". like you know to. corporations would not hire you if your are unhappy, they would sell you something. but you cant pay it, you dont have money because of unemployment, because of sadness, because of unemployment.
@@alexandrugheorghe5610 I did. I watched his video on The Mind-Body Problem. He misrepresented it as something that was not The Mind-Body Problem at all. Instead, it was about people that feel that their bodies do not match their minds, or rather the way they look doesn't match the way they feel they should look. He misrepresented a somewhat rare psychological/emotional problem (that should be addressed with therapy) as a philosophical problem. The philosophical Mind-Body problem Descartes, Spinoza and other philosophers address is about how the mind gets sensory data from the body's sense organs and how the mind delivers messages to the body to make the muscles work.
This is what happens when you go to Dragon School, Harrow, and Cambridge.... You don't actually know most of the common people...no matter how good your intentions are.
He missed the whole point. You can't sell human experience, the higher needs. Those need to be experienced, be genuine. People don't hate capitalism because they are not as happy as the people they saw in an add. Or how many different things you can buy. They could be hating it because maybe they can't afford the necessities, they can't experience genuine human needs because they are overworked or worried about how they are going to get those basic ones. The problem of capitalism is not how it treats it's customers, but how it treats it's workers.
Totally misses the point, that's for sure not why people dislike capitalism. What about exploitation, lack of social responsibility, wealth accumulation, hyper-consumerism, environmental destruction...? He's just helping big business feel good about themselves.
Yea. He briefly addresses it, just to say he's going to focus on this one part. And to defend him, he can't talk about everything. . Still, I'd like to know his perspective on the problems you brought up.
You are right, he mentions it in the span of 2 seconds at 5:40, and then he goes on to say those are not the "core intellectual complaint"(what ever that may mean). In my opinion the way he frames happiness through the talk is pretty much trivial when compared to those other issues (i.e. if a product or service is going to make me, the individual consumer, happy). And I mean, this happiness concept he posits is really weak: Is the individual consumer's happiness more important than, say, justice (or any other possible complaint one may make to capitalism)? Or why is the consumer the only one who must be happy as must be deduced by the fact the he only talks about their happiness and not that of the workers, or of people from third world countries whose resources are often stolen/poisoned/etc.? And beyond the concept of happiness, what I find very disappointing is that he gets the opportunity to speak directly to very powerful people and he delivers something pretty weak and complacent. Kind of like "10 things to learn from Aristotle to improve your business". Yes he can not talk about everything, but what he chose to talk about and how he developed it does say lot.
He is conflating capitalism and consumerism. Capitalism and socialism are about who owns and controls and shares in the profit of production. We can have worker-owned co-ops and still be materialistic.
@@diegovideco Yes. I saw that as either a cop-out, or a blind spot. He comes from a family that became wealthy because of capitalism, so for him the problem becomes, "How can we use capitalism for good to solve the spiritual/emotional problems of this world?" Had he grown up in a working class family whose father lost his job when the factory moved to China, I think he'd have a different view. He may see that the commodification and exploitation of everything causes many of those spiritual/emotional problems.
If he thinks facebook is an example of modern capitalism solving our psychological needs he obviously hasn't used it. Social media is a disaster for mental health.
@@carinabrancodias Yeah, I feel like he's overly optimistic. If you fill the real psychological needs of people, they no longer need to come to your platform as often = less money.
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Spot-on, and worse than that, increasingly social media has become a highly effective and dangerous disinformation tool for fascist regimes globally, hiding behind conspiracy sites like Qanon and far-right propaganda like FoxNews, masquerading as media - never before have we seen brain-washing on this scale.
FACEBOOK is the exploiter of the great human social 'need' i.e the 'NEED' for contact with another human being, BUT disappointing each time.. (facebook tHEN SELLS ADVERTS as an opportunist)
@@flannel2699 spot on! Always! Zuckerberg is evil using human social bonding instinct (DNA) to make $billions.. his customers haven't a chance.. ! addiction to the human beings is natural and addictive..
I have difficulties getting past the fact that he is independently wealthy. I suppose that is how he was able to spend so much time reading, thinking philosophising, which I would love to do, but as a 'worker ' have to spend most of my time slaving and recovering from said slaving.
Does it help if you remember that the Buddha and Muhammad came from rich families? Or that, like you and me, he didn't get to choose his parents? One of my favorites songwriters says "You can't choose where you come from, only where you go". I'm grateful that he's using the ease and privilege of his background to make the world a better place.
@@sobrevida157 Thank you. Yes. Good points.It helps a bit, but I feel it limits his understanding of how difficult it can be for people with limited opportunities. One of my favourite of the ancients is Epictitus who was born a slave in ancient Rome the son of a slave mother who became a philosopher and a teacher of philosophy.
@@muiresuilgorm3452 Yes. I think were he born into the working class, he would have seen the problems of capitalism differently. Instead of "using the power of capitalism" to treat psycho-spiritual problems, he may have seen the commodification, and therefore exploitation, of people as the problem. And, in fact, I presume that many of the problems of modern society:meaningless work, loneliness, large city alienation are byproducts of capitalism...huh. Maybe that's MY (or your) talk to write! cheers!
1. I enjoy reading the comments of others. It's clear De Botton has touched a nerve and the response is thoughtful and considerate (by and large). My own two bits: Everything Capitalism builds crumbles, rotts, dissipates, (ages or becomes dated) breaks down or is consumed (and then pooped!). But that's true of all our products no matter what system produces them. The point being, things can't fill the hole in your soul but having basic needs met is a pre-requisite for living a satisfying life. The work we do must produce that much: provide a basic but good quality of habitat, food, education (culture), HEALTH CARE, clothing. Then we can give ourselves the "extras": snowmobiles, infinity pools, second and third homes, a luxury car for each member of the family! Right? Oh, have I missed something? Like how are we supposed to get those "extras" when we're still paying for the very basics? Oh well, THAT'S WHY PEOPLE HATE CAPITALISM.
The reason I don't like capitalism is not that a bar of soap didn't fix my relationship and capitalism "sucking out my energies", but rather that capitalists rob us workers of our surplus value each and everyday and call that profit. That's the main thing. But there's loads more. For example everything becoming commodified, exploitation of natural resources and therefore of the environment. Capitalism has existed for a few hundred years at best and is now causing an extinction event on such a scale that it is going to eradicate all of humanity in just a couple of decades. But rich people are siding with fascist climate deniers, cause that's more profitable. Now go ahead please and tell me why we accept that.
The sad reality is that there are long queues of people lining up in all industrialised cities hoping to get a JOB. These are people who need others to direct their efforts. If they lose their JOB, it is usually seen as a small disaster. They will have a hard time finding someone else to provide direction for their efforts, and if left to their own devices, ie, to sell their efforts on the open marketplace, they would probably starve to death were it not for social safety nets. It is not so clear then, that the capitalist is "robbing" them of their surplus value, but more likely this capitalist is providing the best deal the worker is able to find on the open marketplace. Let's have a chat in a couple of decades and see where your bold predictions are at that time, 2040 to be precise.
On the surplus value point, Marx who ideas you are channeling was a contemporary of Victor Hugo, who wrote Les Misérables. There was a lot more going on in labour at the time, like industrialization, democratization, the destruction of the old order, etc... Capitalism was a part of that, but so were most other aspects of the modern world. A contemporary of Marx and Hugo was Louis Pasteur, who discovered the germ basis for disease, and the pasteurization of milk, for one thing. As a result disease has been gradually brought in check, and the human population has ballooned. The point being that there is a lot more at work relative to living standards and impacts on the environment than simply the means by which we raise capital. And the people who have failed to see this have killed hundreds of millions in places like Russia, and China. Today, you can capture all the value in your endeavors as a worker, but most people do not have the skills, or the scale to do that. If you want to add other people's skill, capacity to create scale, and to take risks, do not expect them to show up for nothing.
Couldn't disagree more. If capitalists didn't extract your excess values and produce profit there would be no motivation to build more complicated institutions to produce more advanced products. The problem with capitalism is that it's not above human nature. The problems with capitalism is the same problems we have with humans: they want to monopolize power so that they are no longer forced to provide an actual good in exchange for a payment. Capital grows so powerful that it captures government and bends bureaucracies in it's favor once that's done it's next goal is shaping consumers into better consumers and destroying the possibility of competition. Capitalism is also downstream from old ethnic rivalries among religions, castes, nations and races. So capitalism gets hijacked and put into the role of a weapon against groups of people some deserving of it and others not. So the solution to this is studying and diagnosing the underlying issues blocking markets from doing their thing. IMO right now that underlying issue is a federal reserve owned by a handful of jewish and anglo banking families that are essentially above markets. This elite class is turning humans into consumer cattle. We must fix the international system of interest based funny money that's controlled by a ruthless inhuman cartel. Start there and humans will not feel like there surplus value is being extracted.
I see capitalism as a distribution system, it’s not an ideology or religion. It’s a tool that we need to use for our (people) good and benefits. So capitalism needs to be regulated to follow our values so we have equal competition for companies inside a healthy framework.
@@nickspeelman9174 Actually, Kellogg made moves toward real eudaimonia in 1930, and his experiment lasted til 1985! He offered 6-hour days as well as raising wages by 12.5%. His idea of capitalism was to work toward freedom from selling one’s labor, with labor-saving devices. Women in particular loved it, family life improved, kids were happier, communities improved. Men, being idiots, said 6 hour days were for silly women and sissy men, so they won the 8-hour day back.
@@nickspeelman9174 You mean like this? www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/ www.cbc.ca/news/health/oxycontin-and-other-opioids-tied-to-1-in-8-deaths-in-young-adults-ontario-study-shows-1.2696995
People are not consumers. We are producers, composers, selective learners punished by hoarders and conditioned bureaucrats. Profiteers will relabel, repackage anything only to comply with their shareholders insatiable need to make a return. Philosophy is the intersection of humanism and our universe, its not a religion. To be forgotten is not the same as to be erased, economy theorists seem to have a automatic "Delete" button when it comes to wrong doing or criminal behavior. The real wealth; clean air, water, land and biodiversity has been exploited in the name of business. Perhaps honesty, trust and kinship are the intangible but priceless commodity we all yearn for.
True, and apparently there is no "economic model" that includes the glaring and inescapable fact that resources are finite. It boggles the mind, I mean these economists are meant to be intelligent. Or maybe they do know this fact, but if it was included in any model it would be rejected by their peers/masters of greed.
Sorry Alain, you completely lost me when describing air b n b . Satisfying the travel needs of the more affluent whilst further commidfying life for everybody is not a wisdom journey .
He said they will change it over the next 15 years. I don't know how such a thing can be achieved which has to be done mainly by the traveler themselves (i.e. regulating their own psychology).
I’m sure they’ll create an app n use FB n google credentials to learn more about your psych profile than u do about yourself. Correlate it with Amazon and or Alexa data and they have a goldmine of your unexpressed needs and desires!
I'm sort of new to airbnb, but I did notice when I booked a room, there was a place to book 'experiences' and hangouts as well. So I think they are transitioning from just rooms to helping people with the entire experience.
Richard Wagner But the problem of the inner self cannot be white washed by the superficial n superfluous of the exterior. Higher needs are cognitive and emotional needs, that defy and resist petty conspicuous consumption bromides! Alain seems to be self contradictory as he pursues corporate accounts. Shame he’s becoming like any other bottom feeder ...an eloquent sellout but a sellout nonetheless.
@@SooperToober I don't think, for example, learning to make your own soap, or going on a guided walk through historic Richmond with a local, or being led up a volcano are superficial or superfluous. I think they can help us connect with a local flavor, expand our horizons, help us learn about ourselves. And I think that's what airbnb is getting into. On a side note, your immediate labeling of AdB as a 'bottom feeder' may indicate that you have some work to do on being judgmental and assuming the worst in people. . . or maybe not.
I do appreciate Alain's push for a better world. But I think he is mixing things that don't work together. First, that there is a clear dichotomy between what capitalism does that would be to serve the material and physical world and the need for a more spiritual and emotional understanding of the world. Capitalism by design is made to create more needs that we actually already have. Spiritual and emotional intelligence is about having fewer needs and rather a better focus on the important things in life. I think we should go the opposite way, have fewer machines helping us create relationships and more real world talking and hanging out. The same example he made can be used as an argument: Facebook. It was built to make us closer and happier when actually it hasn't changed anything, in fact, it has probably made things worse. By design, capitalism is about the individual, and this makes us feel more lonely. Instead of having machines trying to tell us how to be happy. I think we need a new spiritual and cultural reference that is separate from religions, but that has its same objectives (how to live a happy and purposeful life). As Nice one said "God is dead" and that is true, spirituality is dead, and capitalism has replaced it. Yes, machines can help us with making things easier. But they just cannot solve the problem of us having breakfast and fighting with our spouse or us having an unhappy travel. That is up to us, our perspective and approach on life. This has to be embedded in our culture and upbringing. Capitalism can numb the pain for a while but can't solve the underlying contradictions of human nature. In fact, often by numbing them they grow and end up making the problem bigger than when it started.
I wonder if Alain de Botton knows Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew (check out Adam Curtis' masterpiece : "Century of the Self). But listening to him praising capitalism as a white knight, capable of addressing peoples' higher needs and fulfilling global happiness, I can't help but think there might be a flaw in the way psychology is serving its original purpose (to free the mind, not to enslave it to big business). Same for philosophy actually, would Aristotle be happy about this 2015 sales agent carrier?
Yes I agree. Adam Curtis doc was very interesting. I also think Peter Joseph would be screaming at his screen watching this. The film Zeitgeist does a much better job of putting capitalism into perspective .
" I can't help but think there might be a flaw in the way psychology is serving its original purpose (to free the mind, not to enslave it to big business)" That's exatcly where philosophy will fail our speaker. Capitalism will try to fullfill the higher level needs, but all it can do is present a mirage ("no stress at workplace", "free training etc etc"). People simply want to be free. Capitalism can't give them freedom.
Tatjana P. Rava, Long after you and I are dead, buried and forgotten, Alain de Botton will be remembered by millions of people with so much love and gratitude for all his books, his schools all around the world, his documentaries, his wonderful lessons on TSOL channel, the houses he had arranged to build through Living Architecture Project, for The Book of Life and The Philosophers Mail and above all, for being such an incredibly kind and loving person who feels himself "responsible" for the well being of the entire humanity. It is unbelievable that one single person could manage all this in one life time, helping so many people to lead better lives. So do you really honestly think that such an incredibly intelligent man would choose "philosophy" to become rich and famous??? Even though I find it very sad, I got used to see especially men attacking him very disrespectfully, because of ENVY obviously. But this is the first time I saw a woman being so incredibly unfair, so shallow and truly malicious by judging his work this way. Obviously you know nothing about this man and if you did, your life would be a much better life. The way you comment says much more about you than about Alain de Botton. Frankly I think you really should be terribly ashamed of yourself.
+WOLKENSCHWElF Hello again! Thank you very much for reading:-) I think being a subscriber of The School of Life channel is like being accepted to a top university for free and for life! That's why I try not to miss a single lesson. I am very gald you have discovered them too. You may also want to check their website The Book of Life ( dot org). All the best!!
First part of the talk: "soap doesn't deliver you calm - it's just soap. Drinks don't make you friends - they're just liquids." Second part of the talk: "Use this fancy greek word for continuing to promise that this AirBnB appartment isn't just an apartment, it'll make your whole trip a happy one, and that this LinkedIn profile isn't just a publicly available CV, but again, it'll make everybody happy." So yeah, capitalism has been promising to make everybody happy and hasn't delivered. The gist of this talk is to keep doing that.
@@MarkWettinger How is there any more height to that vision, if the product remains the same? The only thing raising expectations there is the commercials.
I don't agree that most companies target the bottom of Maslow's pyramid. Premium brands like Mercedes, Patek-Philippe and many others help customers increase their authority which is above basic needs. But companies cannot meet higher-order needs. You can't pay money to get self-realisation. Money can't buy you happiness. This is so valuable because only limited number of people can achieve that through dedication, hard work, sweat, blood and tears. There's no workaround (product) for that.
I like Alain very much and have read his books and seen countless videos with him. But he is a good philosopher, not a good economist. He was born in wealthy Switzerland, comes from a middle upper class family and did an ivy league university (not to study economics), basically has eaten the best fruit from the capitalist tree, he would never advocate to cut it down. He's ill equipped to tackle economic theory and practice for humanity. It's like a biologist taking on astronomy. If you're interested in capitalism listen to Piketty or read books and magazines written by the Economist if you're more conservative. If you love philosophy like me stick with Alain.
@@justgivemethetruth you're right, I must admit that i sometimes play along. We are not free and the system frames our mind. I recently revisited an old film called "they live" by John carpenter. It's a gem. A parody about people blindly stuck in the system as you mention.
He's not that pro-Capitalism, he's actually doing the pix and mix same with his Religion for Atheist. But you're right that he would not advocate for cutting it down, Capitalism is like Religion that we couldn't get rid of. So, the best thing we could do is, we should find a meaningful and fulfillment on our chosen job in the Capitalist arena. And as a philosopher, that's was his message.
He should go read a book on why people don't like capitalism. Nobody is sitting in the streets being all smug with their homelessness complaining about how that IPhone just wasn't their thing, but they sure spent 700 $ on it. Never heard such a complaint. Consumerism is criticized as capitalism invalidates products that were the best aat the beginning of the year to, at the end of the year, sell us the same. They have to create desire, so people buy it. People are mad, because that eats up resources (material, energy and labour). And in the end all that is cared for is profit and with regards to profit there are no limits capitalism wouldn't try to crush. Kill people, ahve them work long hours, low pay, dreadful working conditions, don't pay them but rather have stuff automated. If you have money you can get everything, but if you don't you get nothing and capitalism isn't there to give you money.
Of the five levels, Maslow's three higher levels will NEVER be satisfied by capitalism or any other economic or political system. It is the individual alone that can achieve or satisfy them.
Maybe. I do think it's up to the individual, but we all need help with our direction, questions we should consider and all that. It's my job to know myself, but reading books, listening to lectures, talking to experts can help me in my journey and THAT is, I think what he feels can be a growth opportunity for business. For example, I've always wanted to have great conversations, and I thought I was doing a really good job. THEN I read this great book called "Crucial Conversations" which showed me what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. Without the writers putting together their research, I never would have known and probably couldn't have become any better. Now I can. AND it encourages me to continue my exploration and growth. Cheers!
@@sobrevida157 Reading a book is not capitalism helping you achieve your higher needs. People in countries that don't have capitalist economies read books too. Your example is absurd.
@@jaredprince4772 Thaks for your thoughts. Certainly reading a book is not capitalism, but producing the book can be. I watch lectures on youtube which is a product of capitalism. I am communicating with you with tools produced by capitalism, and your thoughts help me analyze my thinking and become a better person. I agree that personal growth occurs inside our own skins, but we can be influenced and educated from the outside, and some of those outside things can be a product of businesses. Maybe I have a muddled view of what capitalism is. Is all business capitalist, or does business become capitalistic when it prioritizes profits over people?
@@sobrevida157 Capitalism produces nothing. People produce things. Capitalism is an economic framework. Socialism doesn't produce anything but people in socialist countries do. People use the tools within whatever economic system they operate to help them produce the things they choose.
I'll believe that for-profit businesses can / want to fulfill eudaemonic happiness when I see it. In fact, I see the trend going in just the opposite direction. I see them creating addictive products, and delivering those addictive products with as few employees as possible. Result: a society full of addicted, unemployed people.
Alan has a miss on this. We hate capitalism because it has enroached on the social contract and civility and evrything has been made for profit and only people who can compete and esp at the highest levels can manage to live fulfillingly. There are some things that need to be part of social and communal pool and togetherness managed for humans and not for profit such as education, health and shelter.
There is a natural tension between the material and the spiritual. There are dreams we must chase and souls to nourish, but we are physical beings and food must also be put on the table. Neither side is less important than the other, so we must find a harmonious balance, and that begins by recognizing the virtues of both sides.
Many indiginous people and writers reject the Maslow hierarchy of needs. They say brotherhood of fellow man (tribe or mob) is a basic need, not second from the top, and literally their lives depend on it. Spiritual awakening isn’t something they strive for, it’s a birthright.
@@OCinTexile you're profoundly arrogant to say that. if someone is denied their participation in the tribal life, spiritual and material, for instance a "point the bone" kind of incident then that person may well go and sit on a rock and die. it happens.
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all. John Maynard Keynes
If "Capitalism" is coming to an end, what different names are nominated for replacement, of this continuing practice? Knowing your Enemy is the easier half of knowing yourself, before you begin to understand "I am you and you are me and we are all together", ..only partially alienated by genetic differences in a relatively superficial way. (Compositions of the same temporal mechanism, in principle)
That seems a very optimistic view of what future companies may seek to make their money from. Am i pessimistic in thinking the true desires will be continued to be teased and not fulfilled? Alain mentions Facebook, its a convenient way of keeping an interactive address book, but consists mostly of bragging self promotion, and envious people feeling inwardly sad that their lives are not as rich as their Facebook friends.
Jack Wheeler I was looking at the audience to see whether they we're as exited as I am by all this information, but they looked a bit bored and tired - and then I saw Stephen Hawking. That changed my view of the audience quite a bit. xD
ZettXXII I was excited to see him too. As for the rest of the audience, they certainly don't seem to be contemplative types: their first concern, it appears, with all those folded arms and hands on chins, is critical appraisal of everything said, and I think I can glimpse de Botton feeling the pressure.
Alain’s ideas are generally spot on: insightful, actionable and empowering. His ideas, and the way he conveys them are a force for good, his mastery of philosophy and its application to everyday problems is very refreshing and inspiring, linking ancient principles with modern problems, often proving that there is little new under the sun, and that we only have to apply some tried and tested solutions to alleviate most contemporary woes... BUT This talk seems more of a job interview than a transmission of wisdom. Of course, accessing the power of the emperor’s (Google’s) resources is too good an opportunity to miss, we are all human and must make a living or, if our living is made, seek power and the immortality it promises. Preaching to the initiated, promising further mass customisation (there are immense profit opportunities in a more granular and microscopic intervention in even more aspects of everyday lives), offering those solutions (“there is a host of methods which could be developed to achieve this”) and citing a couple of examples so the emperor will be tempted and offer a juicy consultancy gig and, the stroke of genius, tying it all together with Aristotle, to validate and imprint a respectable veneer over the whole business, in the great imperial tradition of claiming a link to the ancient philosophers in order to legitimise the latest phase of imperialism, just like every other empire in the West, be they based on powerful cities, nations or, as now, corporations, may be too much of an intellectual contortion even for such a heavyweight as Alain. AND SO That the wise would wish to praise the powerful and offer services to further that power, helping them to reach deeper and deeper into the hearts and minds of the subjects is nothing new. My beef is in the fact that this thinly disguised pitch should be promoted as a balanced philosophical view, and be made public as such. Maybe a more interesting topic would be the fact that most of our communication, verbal and written, is scanned by algorithms and used to serve us ads. What would Aristotle have to say to that?
yep - thanks for directing my attention to this and shining the light - agreed. I got a shudder when i saw the words google and zeitgiest together. My first thought was the empire just bought out the resistance.
The detractors here forget that he is just as human as the rest of us, and is just as flawed. There are elements of truth in what he said in this presentation. It requires not taking all he said at face value, but to use your analytical mind to pick out the most important nuggets of wisdom and combine them into a narrative that fits your individual circumstances. I despise Facebook and the rest of social media. It's anti-social media and doesn't address the core issue of connection. We have an entire generation being manipulated to believe they are connected to others through technology when its the exact opposite. If you want real connection, turn your effing technology off, and share physical space with those you actually want connection with and learn what it means to have meaningful conversation. The algorithms constantly being used to keep people addicted to these social media platforms are nefarious and malevolent in their nature. There's a reason why many are reverting to those things that are pre digital: Analog photography, vinyl recorded music, natural fiber clothing, etc. There is a concept called compassionate capitalism as the mission statement of some companies, but it's few and far between. When money becomes the god, that becomes the ONLY motivating factor. Pure capitalism dismisses the greater good for the sake of profit - and Google is no exception. Their original philosophy of "Do no evil" has long disappeared and it's apparent in their business practices today. I find it ironic that this is from Google, which also owns the TH-cam platform, where they white wash to appear as if they are doing no evil. Yet they regularly censor those who don't align with their so called higher SJW left leaning moral values. I could rant on and on, but I'll get off my soap box now...
Airbnb you mean all that housing in California catering to jet setting rich people's fulfillment while California is suffering from some of the worst homelessness in decades. Aristotle's utopia indeed.
+The School of Life Why is Mr. de Botton celebrating the monetizing on the higher needs of people? I would hope for the preservation of these higher needs from the claws of the homogenising power of capitalism. The examples he cites: LinkedIn and Facebook appear as absolute nightmares to me.
+Jan Roobrouck I agree with you, Facebook do not fix the deep psychological problems in our relationships with our friends. It's grow with advertisses and it feed off our social desires and weakenesses. I think that capitalism is inadequation with imagination of global social aims. To be motivated by selling more and more things to other persons to the aim of bigger personnal profit will become absurd. If we provide individuals a meaningfull life aims to accomplish, they won't aspirer to sell shining bullshits on their advertise's panels to gain power and social dominance. They could achieve happiness from the sentiment of providing to their clients these exact products to accomplish their own meaningfull life aims. Then, in this case, capitalism wouldn't be a nightmare. But in this case, we should probably redefine capitalism too. Excuse me for my language, i'm not english.
@@SitcomIxajelEyes But micro-tracking your clients, and plotting psychological traps for personal gain is going to help this pursuit of meaningful life?The whole point of why people are pissed off at Facebook, is that it's using data it collects of them as a product to be sold to the highest bidder, and usually to advertising agencies that craft SAME psychological traps to promote various snake oil they sell as the next best thing.
"Why don't people like capitalism", obvious: it drains all lust for life out of you. The real problem is that still too much people like it far too much.
Got me on 11:50 while 11:54 'the underlying promise of travel is much deeper...we will be satisfied by journeying abroad'. Alain is mint! Well-funny dude. Spot-on about everything!
is this when i realize that The School of Life too is the next narcissistic echo chamber for the upper class? - this thing so removed from the reality of the masses scraping bye, in a type of capitalism that would have been deemed predatory before the reagan-thatcher reactionary return to a 19th century type of capitalism, that serves an antisocial combo of financiers and grandiose nationalistic governments. this is why we hate capitalism, 'cause this capitalism is antisocial, specially in light of climate change, and i'm sure they'd agree on Volcano: it's not logical the way we're going. and this capitalism creates tons of psycho-social stress that humanity could be spared, it makes us nihilistic, and not in the philosophically aware sense, but in the short-term survival type of existence, and in a social prison, instead of a genuine natural environment where natural selection would be a fairer game than this corporate neofeudalism will ever be. Also, remember who invented google and how it came with that 'don't be evil' that didn't stand the rapacious nature of neoliberal wall street? this is why we hate you, 'cause the nature of your unchecked profits damages the future of everyone. you bunch of new and not improved 'upper class twits' rationalizing your privilege, are a shame to the collective intellect. and it's really showing.
Yeah, he really dumbed it down. Romanticism is also about understanding ourselves as part of something larger, which is also intrinsic to Eudaimonia . Art, in this period, is often about achieving the sublime, transcending our sense that we can understand the universe as if it were a machine. Ironically, this belief in the clockwork universe born of the Enlightenment, is itself merely an instinct. People believe it without reflection, which is Botton's straw-man critique of Romanticism in the first place. It's too bad; I like his application of Aristotle to today, but his misunderstanding of Romanticism puts him squarely in the Idealism camp of 'all you got to do is' level up to the Platonic ideal of Capitalism and it will work fine. I actually agree that we have to start from what we've got: Capitalism. But, without a real deep critique of what's wrong with it, you're not going to transcend the self-destructive trajectory we're on. His point about not fulfilling the brand's promise is just the very thin surface of how the very nature of Capital must evolve.
@@JoshuaAugustusBacigalupi - The real problem with Capitalism is that it is totally dependent on an ever increasing growth - as Marx pointed out, that is impossible, and will end in collapse. Global Warming should also speed that collapse along nicely.
i came here for insight and i feel ive been sold ideas at rapid fire pace. can he talk any faster so as to avoid completely being followed or criticized?
Is Facebook not actually making people lonelier? Air bnb sucks! i live in an apartment in Vancouver, Canada which is infested with it and it raises issues on so many different levels.
4:08 "We believe that people's best chance of finding fulfilment comes from not thinking too hard about why they're doing it" In truth, people's best chance of finding fulfilment comes from not thinking too hard about how well it's going.
Monetize our psychological and emotional needs... that sounds so terrible!!! We have that in Japan where people are so strongly seperated that they rent a family to experience happiness! But the time will run out and you will be alone again and then every part of your lonelines will come back double so hard!!! All he said is what we have to do in the future, that sounds nice but he did not say one word about how to do it!!! And if you try to think about ways it is disturbing...
Does anyone know of more differentiated arguments about this topic whether companies and ai are able to fulfill deep human needs? Please post them in the comments
WOW -- HUGE confusion over something that is very SIMPLE. He talks like it was / is CAPITALISM that somehow puts us / drives us into consumerism and acquiring a lot of things of little value. Anyone out there actually believe THAT? CAPITALISM is simply an, or name for an environment or marketplace defined by society and/or Governments in which people function. It has NOTHING to do with WHO is in control, what people produce, sell or buy, etc. CAPITALISM in particular is a marketplace where anyone can invent, design, create, produce anything they want that they can sell for whatever someone else is willing to pay or exchange - basic trade, as opposed to other systems like socialism / communism where people are not free, but the governments define / dictate what people can produce and sell and how much they can sell it for, etc. - which has ALWAYS proven to destroy societies throughout history. A dramatic recent example is Venezuela. The people in control try to deceive and convince the people that Capitalism is to blame for the problems - to lead them to dislike it (because it is the best for the people and takes away / eliminates their control) and to look to the Gov for help, something better, etc., so that THEY can maintain and increase THEIR power and control over everyone. Socialism / Communism always destroys - robs the wealth from the people - transferring it to the few in control at the top - which is what they are convincing many to go along with today and why there is IMMENSE DEBT and HUGE problems in the U.S., and everywhere.
Lol. Keep buying the government lie. Nothing happens in isolation. No single cause of anything and if you make it that simple then you're the simple one
First book I read was Status Anxiety, and it was so great. He does not look so good here. A great speaker and writer, but I wonder if he has been getting cancer treatments or something. I hope to read many more Botton books in the future.
I think there is something inherently limited in a large platform model in terms of being able to answer deep needs, and that is it will be anonymous. The problem is that individuals hope to be seen. The closest I’ve seen a service or business achieve “eudimonia” is the Shinkansen in Japan. It has physically connected the people of the country safely, efficiently at good value for 50 years (not a single passenger death). But, can it really psychologically connect people? No. Individuals are going to have to do the last leg of the inner work. Society at large can help by actively teaching emotional intelligence.
Most likely what will happen is that companies will not make overtures to the next level of Maslow's hierarchy, but will instead turn the entire pyramid upside down-similarly to what Ayn Rand did. "The best way to understand Ayn Rand is to recognize that she simply inverted Maslow's hierarchy of needs, starting with the self-actualized übermensch-still dependent on farmers, mind you-and ending at the bottom with the foraging masses." - Eli Khamarov
You can't fulfill higher needs directly with money. You sure can pay someone to guide you on your own journey, but that counseling must never be motivated by sheer capitalist agendas. A counselor needs to primarily be interested in the client and only secondarily in money to finance their own life. Competition in the capitalist sense is not an adequate tool for providing people with the help they need. Capitalizing on serving higher needs will only lead to more people trying to make a quick buck instead of actually caring for patients. Just like doctors who only are doctors for the money not because they care about helping others.
Costumer satisfaction - Eudaimonia (spelled in Greek as follows "evdemonia" not as "udaimonia") Meaning "feeling satisfaction" "being content". When mr Alan said that word I wasnt sure what he said😅
not thinking to hard .........our mission to learn to be more in our heart and feelings, systems being a evolutionary learning in this time and that is the most exciting journey
i agree with alain about the mysterious disappearance of the psychological, in business, education, life ... however, i would suggest that the psychological is incompatible with our present socio-economic system. perhaps thats why it's 'disappeared'?
Are we forgetting that making the higher needs the business of capitalism this will be indefinitely exploited? Could you imagine the psychological damage that could occure when you motivate human well being by profit?
If any corporation can actually fulfill any of these aspirations, they will clearly be highly valued & differentiated in the market. To the extent this occurs, capitalism ensures it will succeed in generating revenue. The skepticism I read in these comments is a lack of belief such businesses can exist. To that point, the net effect of franchises like WalMart is to commoditize “stuff”, leaving higher services as the primary high margin businesses of the “first-world”. However you can imagine the price tag! This level of service will not be equitably available.
i'm not so sure you can monetize the higher needs as such. too many variables. outcomes too subjective. and our higher needs for connection, or fulfillment, are just not that transactional. I think the examples of trying to monetize higher needs are education, counseling, life coaching. how would one go about a more precise monetization of higher needs?
'Monetize' the higher needs? Well, I'm pretty frustrated given what we saw with 'lower needs' consumerism! The lecture had a good start, but it failed on delivering the promise of 'thinking outside the box'.
I think that the fact that a system needs to adjust and "correct" itself in order to move up on the pyramid of needs and compete with the left, which seems to have reached that goal at least philosophicaly, is fundamentally flawed. The capitalist system as we know it today is based on consumerism and selfishness, so by removing those attributes or "correcting" them we are changing the core of the system, thus admitting that it was flawed.
Surely corporations would attempt to sell to our higher needs in much the same ways as they do with basic needs ; by deciding for themselves what these needs should be for all people. This would be incorrect and potentially as unfulfilling and exploitative as consumerism is now, if not even more so. That is of course dependent upon corporations being capable of conceptualising higher needs -business sense and sales techniques will only go so far- these people would need to first understand for themselves what they wish to teach or sell to others. They would likely be far out of their depth. Those in pursuit of endless profits aren’t typically the kind disposed to philosophy and psychology in any meaningful and fulfilling way. A Stoic hermit is a Stoic hermit - a tech entrepreneur is a tech entrepreneur, their goals and desires drive them in opposite directions more often than not.
I agree it's not about money, it's about being with your friends everyday, spending time with your family, if you're more interested in your spiritual and psychological needs then earning money check out the twelve tribe communities, or each member is valued for the skills that God has given them, each member exercises their skills help everybody else
This seems to contradict his opinion in his debate against Steven Pinker and Matt Ridley. He seems to be saying here, that our tech will lead to our increased happiness.
I was coming up with his AEI idea as he was leading into it. I love that idea. We need a sophisticated OTC self aware identity test. like those weird internet test that tell you was Disney character you are, but way better. It would have the AI to be able to be like a friend you talk to about your problems by first "listening", then making verbal suggestions based on your mood level answers.
Good grief, Alain. Your glowing eudaimonia-for-sale first has to deal with the huge elephant in capitalism you never mentioned: wage-slavery, which blocks happiness. After all, Aristotle would tell you that anyone who has to sell their labor is out of the game of seeking Sophia. That’s approximately all employees. You talk as if your choice of a job might be an error, as if there is as much free choice of jobs (work for a master) as breakfast cereal. What enlightened entrepreneur can sell people freedom? Master/Slave, Lord/Serf, Boss/worker, Bezos/Drudge. Too bad, I have enjoyed some of Alain in the past.
This gentleman actually offers criticism of advertising and how those who are more easily duped by the many techniques of contemporary advertising often become dismayed. If one actually dislikes capitalism that assessment would seem to betray a rather profound ignorance of political and economic history. Capitalism has brought more wealth to more people than any other economic system yet devised by humankind. Obviously, the acquisition of 'sophia' has always been realized through practices outside of economic affairs.
If your interested in the intension of Artificial Emotional Intelligence you should check out Affectiva and Beyond Verbal. They both have YT CHANNELS or apps - i suggest the API have potential to know you better than you think you do.
Wrong job = yes. Right partner = yes. Health so far so good. 2 out of three aint bad. My 62 yr old experience tells me if you make mistakes in any of these you will end up homeless, ostricised, called a bum and probably die prematurely, especially in western society. I managed to turn the wrong job around and changed sectors and learned to stop hating my penultimate employer. Hate destroys the hater. It is vitally important to cheerfully ignore advertisers and get on with your lives,
People don't like capitalism but they don't have an alternative at this time. They used to have an alternative and it failed due to dictatorship and excessive use of force to impose it.
Because Alain is not an economist to discuss capitalism. He's a very good philosopher. They came to hear about philosophy that's why they are not too thrilled.
I am sure this talk gave birth to "WOKE branding". All the marketing guys sitting here took note and once again did the same thing they have always done but under the guise of some lofty ideals.
How naive we were to think facebook was investing in psychology for a good reason lol or for that matter business in general, something that is profit driven must maintain unnatural amounts of investment (it must create reason other businesses offering the same services cannot survive - take for example googles graps on search engines) ; and if it turns to psychology to stimulate that investment rate, this should terrify us not comfort us.
This is end-stage capitalism when it begins to sell you on your deepest desires and needs. It's time to move past capitalism and unto new systems adequate to the times.
I think a company focusing more on it's customers' "higher" needs is much more appropriate than a company focusing on some ill defined and controversial idea like "social justice" and "Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity."
I enjoy Alain de Botton, but this is extremely off the mark. People don't dislike capitalism primarily because it falls short of its advertised promise. People dislike capitalism because it exploits people, depends on extracting resources from poorer countries, the profit motive as extremely socially and environmentally damaging, the commodification of every area of life, the way it interconnects with constructs like race, gender, ability and class to keep people selling their labour at exploited prices. You talk about an airbnb owner and its eudaimonic promise, but have you considered the gentrification airbnb has causes? How it has distorted the housing market? The ethics of people renting to travellers at very high prices that local people could never afford thereby affecting housing supply? What does Aristotle have to say about these issues? And why are these obvious problems never approached or discussed by the School of Life..?
I love Alain de Botton's writing but every time he says a company is trying to "fix a deep psychological need" what he is actually saying is "monetise deep philosophical needs" and that is terrifying to me.
never been to desnyland huh?
He's often reasonable sounding, but in this talk he isn't. What I see here is a certain way to monetize his own power of suggestion. Talkers will look to get paid to talk where the pay is the most profitable. Capitalism 101.
@@Mishkafofer It's the fact that Disneyland and other such "monetization of needs" are so captivating that they can be terrifying. But Disneyland is a fairly harmless example.
Too many offers he couldn’t refuse. He’s selling out to the tech sector, one of the most libertarian, anti-social industries on Earth today. And that’s saying something given a fossil fuel industry happy to send us into climate collapse by booking more FF reserves than we could possibly burn and stay under 3 °C. And 2 °C is going to be catastrophic.
@@diabl2master multi billion dollar company that owns a fifth of our public media positivity harmless :)
so, monetize the higher needs will bring us a brighter future? sounds for me more like a nightmare.
I agree, if corporations are failing to satisfy basic needs how will they satisfy a higher need? Surely a basic need must be met first..
i hope those corporations first make their employees happy first.
your boss telling you "make that person happy". like you know to.
corporations would not hire you if your are unhappy, they would sell you something. but you cant pay it, you dont have money because of unemployment, because of sadness, because of unemployment.
Well, take a look at the TH-cam channel, The School of Life.
@@alexandrugheorghe5610 I did. I watched his video on The Mind-Body Problem. He misrepresented it as something that was not The Mind-Body Problem at all. Instead, it was about people that feel that their bodies do not match their minds, or rather the way they look doesn't match the way they feel they should look. He misrepresented a somewhat rare psychological/emotional problem (that should be addressed with therapy) as a philosophical problem. The philosophical Mind-Body problem Descartes, Spinoza and other philosophers address is about how the mind gets sensory data from the body's sense organs and how the mind delivers messages to the body to make the muscles work.
@@jaredprince4772 I think we're confusing the two. We're talking here about consciousness and to some degree, solutions tailored to unconscious needs.
This is what happens when you go to Dragon School, Harrow, and Cambridge.... You don't actually know most of the common people...no matter how good your intentions are.
He missed the whole point. You can't sell human experience, the higher needs. Those need to be experienced, be genuine. People don't hate capitalism because they are not as happy as the people they saw in an add. Or how many different things you can buy. They could be hating it because maybe they can't afford the necessities, they can't experience genuine human needs because they are overworked or worried about how they are going to get those basic ones. The problem of capitalism is not how it treats it's customers, but how it treats it's workers.
And I might ask to that last sentence, what is the difference?
Totally misses the point, that's for sure not why people dislike capitalism.
What about exploitation, lack of social responsibility, wealth accumulation, hyper-consumerism, environmental destruction...? He's just helping big business feel good about themselves.
Yea. He briefly addresses it, just to say he's going to focus on this one part. And to defend him, he can't talk about everything. . Still, I'd like to know his perspective on the problems you brought up.
You are right, he mentions it in the span of 2 seconds at 5:40, and then he goes on to say those are not the "core intellectual complaint"(what ever that may mean).
In my opinion the way he frames happiness through the talk is pretty much trivial when compared to those other issues (i.e. if a product or service is going to make me, the individual consumer, happy). And I mean, this happiness concept he posits is really weak: Is the individual consumer's happiness more important than, say, justice (or any other possible complaint one may make to capitalism)? Or why is the consumer the only one who must be happy as must be deduced by the fact the he only talks about their happiness and not that of the workers, or of people from third world countries whose resources are often stolen/poisoned/etc.?
And beyond the concept of happiness, what I find very disappointing is that he gets the opportunity to speak directly to very powerful people and he delivers something pretty weak and complacent. Kind of like "10 things to learn from Aristotle to improve your business".
Yes he can not talk about everything, but what he chose to talk about and how he developed it does say lot.
He is conflating capitalism and consumerism. Capitalism and socialism are about who owns and controls and shares in the profit of production. We can have worker-owned co-ops and still be materialistic.
@@diegovideco Yes. I saw that as either a cop-out, or a blind spot. He comes from a family that became wealthy because of capitalism, so for him the problem becomes, "How can we use capitalism for good to solve the spiritual/emotional problems of this world?"
Had he grown up in a working class family whose father lost his job when the factory moved to China, I think he'd have a different view. He may see that the commodification and exploitation of everything causes many of those spiritual/emotional problems.
If he thinks facebook is an example of modern capitalism solving our psychological needs he obviously hasn't used it. Social media is a disaster for mental health.
@tim walsh yikes...
Capitalism isn't in the pursuit of the human needs, capitalism is in the pursuit of money. That's what capitalism is all about.
@@carinabrancodias Yeah, I feel like he's overly optimistic. If you fill the real psychological needs of people, they no longer need to come to your platform as often = less money.
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Attack bad actions. Recognise that those committing bad actions are often the victims of the intellectual and political elites that have misled them.
Spot-on, and worse than that, increasingly social media has become a highly effective and dangerous disinformation tool for fascist regimes globally, hiding behind conspiracy sites like Qanon and far-right propaganda like FoxNews, masquerading as media - never before have we seen brain-washing on this scale.
Facebook is not to combat loneliness but for public exhibition (showing off). The bonfire of vanities.
A bit of both, I'd say
Are you sure you know what “bonfire of vanities “ means?
FACEBOOK is the exploiter of the great human social 'need' i.e the 'NEED' for contact with another human being, BUT disappointing each time.. (facebook tHEN SELLS ADVERTS as an opportunist)
Alejandro Martin et al.. Facebook is about one thing. Harvesting personal data to make money. Always has been..
@@flannel2699 spot on! Always! Zuckerberg is evil using human social bonding instinct (DNA) to make $billions.. his customers haven't a chance.. ! addiction to the human beings is natural and addictive..
I have difficulties getting past the fact that he is independently wealthy. I suppose that is how he was able to spend so much time reading, thinking philosophising, which I would love to do, but as a 'worker ' have to spend most of my time slaving and recovering from said slaving.
Does it help if you remember that the Buddha and Muhammad came from rich families? Or that, like you and me, he didn't get to choose his parents? One of my favorites songwriters says "You can't choose where you come from, only where you go". I'm grateful that he's using the ease and privilege of his background to make the world a better place.
@@sobrevida157 Thank you. Yes. Good points.It helps a bit, but I feel it limits his understanding of how difficult it can be for people with limited opportunities. One of my favourite of the ancients is Epictitus who was born a slave in ancient Rome the son of a slave mother who became a philosopher and a teacher of philosophy.
@@muiresuilgorm3452 Yes. I think were he born into the working class, he would have seen the problems of capitalism differently. Instead of "using the power of capitalism" to treat psycho-spiritual problems, he may have seen the commodification, and therefore exploitation, of people as the problem. And, in fact, I presume that many of the problems of modern society:meaningless work, loneliness, large city alienation are byproducts of capitalism...huh. Maybe that's MY (or your) talk to write! cheers!
My friend knows him IRL, he’s snobby and doesn’t like poor people.
@@oxherder9061 yep cause its easy to say "my this and this knows this and this in real life". Oh and i hope ur still alive
1. I enjoy reading the comments of others. It's clear De Botton has touched a nerve and the response is thoughtful and considerate (by and large). My own two bits: Everything Capitalism builds crumbles, rotts, dissipates, (ages or becomes dated) breaks down or is consumed (and then pooped!). But that's true of all our products no matter what system produces them. The point being, things can't fill the hole in your soul but having basic needs met is a pre-requisite for living a satisfying life. The work we do must produce that much: provide a basic but good quality of habitat, food, education (culture), HEALTH CARE, clothing. Then we can give ourselves the "extras": snowmobiles, infinity pools, second and third homes, a luxury car for each member of the family! Right? Oh, have I missed something? Like how are we supposed to get those "extras" when we're still paying for the very basics? Oh well, THAT'S WHY PEOPLE HATE CAPITALISM.
The reason I don't like capitalism is not that a bar of soap didn't fix my relationship and capitalism "sucking out my energies", but rather that capitalists rob us workers of our surplus value each and everyday and call that profit. That's the main thing. But there's loads more. For example everything becoming commodified, exploitation of natural resources and therefore of the environment. Capitalism has existed for a few hundred years at best and is now causing an extinction event on such a scale that it is going to eradicate all of humanity in just a couple of decades. But rich people are siding with fascist climate deniers, cause that's more profitable.
Now go ahead please and tell me why we accept that.
The sad reality is that there are long queues of people lining up in all industrialised cities hoping to get a JOB. These are people who need others to direct their efforts. If they lose their JOB, it is usually seen as a small disaster. They will have a hard time finding someone else to provide direction for their efforts, and if left to their own devices, ie, to sell their efforts on the open marketplace, they would probably starve to death were it not for social safety nets. It is not so clear then, that the capitalist is "robbing" them of their surplus value, but more likely this capitalist is providing the best deal the worker is able to find on the open marketplace. Let's have a chat in a couple of decades and see where your bold predictions are at that time, 2040 to be precise.
On the surplus value point, Marx who ideas you are channeling was a contemporary of Victor Hugo, who wrote Les Misérables. There was a lot more going on in labour at the time, like industrialization, democratization, the destruction of the old order, etc... Capitalism was a part of that, but so were most other aspects of the modern world.
A contemporary of Marx and Hugo was Louis Pasteur, who discovered the germ basis for disease, and the pasteurization of milk, for one thing. As a result disease has been gradually brought in check, and the human population has ballooned. The point being that there is a lot more at work relative to living standards and impacts on the environment than simply the means by which we raise capital. And the people who have failed to see this have killed hundreds of millions in places like Russia, and China.
Today, you can capture all the value in your endeavors as a worker, but most people do not have the skills, or the scale to do that. If you want to add other people's skill, capacity to create scale, and to take risks, do not expect them to show up for nothing.
Couldn't disagree more. If capitalists didn't extract your excess values and produce profit there would be no motivation to build more complicated institutions to produce more advanced products. The problem with capitalism is that it's not above human nature. The problems with capitalism is the same problems we have with humans: they want to monopolize power so that they are no longer forced to provide an actual good in exchange for a payment. Capital grows so powerful that it captures government and bends bureaucracies in it's favor once that's done it's next goal is shaping consumers into better consumers and destroying the possibility of competition. Capitalism is also downstream from old ethnic rivalries among religions, castes, nations and races. So capitalism gets hijacked and put into the role of a weapon against groups of people some deserving of it and others not. So the solution to this is studying and diagnosing the underlying issues blocking markets from doing their thing. IMO right now that underlying issue is a federal reserve owned by a handful of jewish and anglo banking families that are essentially above markets. This elite class is turning humans into consumer cattle. We must fix the international system of interest based funny money that's controlled by a ruthless inhuman cartel. Start there and humans will not feel like there surplus value is being extracted.
As a species we seem to be suiciding: Freud's death wish anyone?
I see capitalism as a distribution system, it’s not an ideology or religion. It’s a tool that we need to use for our (people) good and benefits. So capitalism needs to be regulated to follow our values so we have equal competition for companies inside a healthy framework.
a lot of people there have a face of "this is not what i signed up for"
He was wasted on this audience.
Mindless business drones
Stephen Hawking was in the audience
the lady on the front row on her phone annoyed me the most !!
can't wait for that moment when i can call kelloggs in the morning for some emotional support before i start the day
They'll probably just recommend a yogurt enema. www.museumofquackery.com/amquacks/kellogg.htm
@@nickspeelman9174 Actually, Kellogg made moves toward real eudaimonia in 1930, and his experiment lasted til 1985! He offered 6-hour days as well as raising wages by 12.5%. His idea of capitalism was to work toward freedom from selling one’s labor, with labor-saving devices. Women in particular loved it, family life improved, kids were happier, communities improved. Men, being idiots, said 6 hour days were for silly women and sissy men, so they won the 8-hour day back.
@@JackSaturday None of that contradicts the fact that he also advocated a number of quack cures. Legacies be complicated.
@@nickspeelman9174 You mean like this?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/
www.cbc.ca/news/health/oxycontin-and-other-opioids-tied-to-1-in-8-deaths-in-young-adults-ontario-study-shows-1.2696995
Everytime you eat something you like your brains releases chemicals that make you happy, so yeah.
People are not consumers. We are producers, composers, selective learners punished by hoarders and conditioned bureaucrats. Profiteers will relabel, repackage anything only to comply with their shareholders insatiable need to make a return. Philosophy is the intersection of humanism and our universe, its not a religion.
To be forgotten is not the same as to be erased, economy theorists seem to have a automatic "Delete" button when it comes to wrong doing or criminal behavior.
The real wealth; clean air, water, land and biodiversity has been exploited in the name of business. Perhaps honesty, trust and kinship are the intangible but priceless commodity we all yearn for.
True, and apparently there is no "economic model" that includes the glaring and inescapable fact that resources are finite. It boggles the mind, I mean these economists are meant to be intelligent. Or maybe they do know this fact, but if it was included in any model it would be rejected by their peers/masters of greed.
Sorry Alain, you completely lost me when describing air b n b . Satisfying the travel needs of the more affluent whilst further commidfying life for everybody is not a wisdom journey .
He said they will change it over the next 15 years. I don't know how such a thing can be achieved which has to be done mainly by the traveler themselves (i.e. regulating their own psychology).
I’m sure they’ll create an app n use FB n google credentials to learn more about your psych profile than u do about yourself. Correlate it with Amazon and or Alexa data and they have a goldmine of your unexpressed needs and desires!
I'm sort of new to airbnb, but I did notice when I booked a room, there was a place to book 'experiences' and hangouts as well. So I think they are transitioning from just rooms to helping people with the entire experience.
Richard Wagner But the problem of the inner self cannot be white washed by the superficial n superfluous of the exterior. Higher needs are cognitive and emotional needs, that defy and resist petty conspicuous consumption bromides! Alain seems to be self contradictory as he pursues corporate accounts. Shame he’s becoming like any other bottom feeder ...an eloquent sellout but a sellout nonetheless.
@@SooperToober I don't think, for example, learning to make your own soap, or going on a guided walk through historic Richmond with a local, or being led up a volcano are superficial or superfluous. I think they can help us connect with a local flavor, expand our horizons, help us learn about ourselves. And I think that's what airbnb is getting into. On a side note, your immediate labeling of AdB as a 'bottom feeder' may indicate that you have some work to do on being judgmental and assuming the worst in people. . . or maybe not.
I do appreciate Alain's push for a better world. But I think he is mixing things that don't work together. First, that there is a clear dichotomy between what capitalism does that would be to serve the material and physical world and the need for a more spiritual and emotional understanding of the world. Capitalism by design is made to create more needs that we actually already have. Spiritual and emotional intelligence is about having fewer needs and rather a better focus on the important things in life. I think we should go the opposite way, have fewer machines helping us create relationships and more real world talking and hanging out. The same example he made can be used as an argument: Facebook. It was built to make us closer and happier when actually it hasn't changed anything, in fact, it has probably made things worse. By design, capitalism is about the individual, and this makes us feel more lonely. Instead of having machines trying to tell us how to be happy. I think we need a new spiritual and cultural reference that is separate from religions, but that has its same objectives (how to live a happy and purposeful life). As Nice one said "God is dead" and that is true, spirituality is dead, and capitalism has replaced it. Yes, machines can help us with making things easier. But they just cannot solve the problem of us having breakfast and fighting with our spouse or us having an unhappy travel. That is up to us, our perspective and approach on life. This has to be embedded in our culture and upbringing. Capitalism can numb the pain for a while but can't solve the underlying contradictions of human nature. In fact, often by numbing them they grow and end up making the problem bigger than when it started.
I wonder if Alain de Botton knows Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew (check out Adam Curtis' masterpiece : "Century of the Self). But listening to him praising capitalism as a white knight, capable of addressing peoples' higher needs and fulfilling global happiness, I can't help but think there might be a flaw in the way psychology is serving its original purpose (to free the mind, not to enslave it to big business). Same for philosophy actually, would Aristotle be happy about this 2015 sales agent carrier?
Yes I agree. Adam Curtis doc was very interesting. I also think Peter Joseph would be screaming at his screen watching this. The film Zeitgeist does a much better job of putting capitalism into perspective .
" I can't help but think there might be a flaw in the way psychology is serving its original purpose (to free the mind, not to enslave it to big business)"
That's exatcly where philosophy will fail our speaker. Capitalism will try to fullfill the higher level needs, but all it can do is present a mirage ("no stress at workplace", "free training etc etc"). People simply want to be free. Capitalism can't give them freedom.
Alain de Bottan was always annoying, now he’s becoming quite putrid.
@tim walsh if I believed in banal conspiracy theory i'd agree with you!
@@bashful228 Attacking his personal character. Bravo.
A friend of mine knows this man in real life.
He holds a *lot* of contempt for poor people.
Tatjana P. Rava,
Long after you and I are dead, buried and forgotten, Alain de Botton will be remembered by millions of people with so much love and gratitude for all his books, his schools all around the world, his documentaries, his wonderful lessons on TSOL channel, the houses he had arranged to build through Living Architecture Project, for The Book of Life and The Philosophers Mail and above all, for being such an incredibly kind and loving person who feels himself "responsible" for the well being of the entire humanity. It is unbelievable that one single person could manage all this in one life time, helping so many people to lead better lives.
So do you really honestly think that such an incredibly intelligent man would choose "philosophy" to become rich and famous???
Even though I find it very sad, I got used to see especially men attacking him very disrespectfully, because of ENVY obviously. But this is the first time I saw a woman being so incredibly unfair, so shallow and truly malicious by judging his work this way. Obviously you know nothing about this man and if you did, your life would be a much better life.
The way you comment says much more about you than about Alain de Botton. Frankly I think you really should be terribly ashamed of yourself.
***** beautiful
Paradigm shift
Thank you for reading! :-)
***** No Problem , cheered me up :)
+Lua Veli How come you have written a great (top-) comment under every second video I watch? ^.^
+WOLKENSCHWElF
Hello again! Thank you very much for reading:-) I think being a subscriber of The School of Life channel is like being accepted to a top university for free and for life! That's why I try not to miss a single lesson. I am very gald you have discovered them too. You may also want to check their website The Book of Life ( dot org).
All the best!!
First part of the talk: "soap doesn't deliver you calm - it's just soap. Drinks don't make you friends - they're just liquids." Second part of the talk: "Use this fancy greek word for continuing to promise that this AirBnB appartment isn't just an apartment, it'll make your whole trip a happy one, and that this LinkedIn profile isn't just a publicly available CV, but again, it'll make everybody happy." So yeah, capitalism has been promising to make everybody happy and hasn't delivered. The gist of this talk is to keep doing that.
I think it's about expanding the operations for both those companies, beyond just those fundamental offerings, to live up to that higher vision
@@MarkWettinger How is there any more height to that vision, if the product remains the same? The only thing raising expectations there is the commercials.
I don't agree that most companies target the bottom of Maslow's pyramid. Premium brands like Mercedes, Patek-Philippe and many others help customers increase their authority which is above basic needs. But companies cannot meet higher-order needs. You can't pay money to get self-realisation. Money can't buy you happiness. This is so valuable because only limited number of people can achieve that through dedication, hard work, sweat, blood and tears. There's no workaround (product) for that.
This video somehow made me more anti-capitalist
i'm not trying to hurt you or something, but you're a hopeless imbecile
Me too. He’s gone from annoying to irritating.
Naota Kun you’d know I suppose.
You have the right to your feelings, and I agree with you.
Go to Venezuela or Cuba where capitalism doesnt exist.
I like Alain very much and have read his books and seen countless videos with him. But he is a good philosopher, not a good economist. He was born in wealthy Switzerland, comes from a middle upper class family and did an ivy league university (not to study economics), basically has eaten the best fruit from the capitalist tree, he would never advocate to cut it down. He's ill equipped to tackle economic theory and practice for humanity. It's like a biologist taking on astronomy. If you're interested in capitalism listen to Piketty or read books and magazines written by the Economist if you're more conservative. If you love philosophy like me stick with Alain.
That is how most of the people who run the world are ... they want everyone else stuck in the machine don't give too much thought to it.
@@justgivemethetruth you're right, I must admit that i sometimes play along. We are not free and the system frames our mind. I recently revisited an old film called "they live" by John carpenter. It's a gem. A parody about people blindly stuck in the system as you mention.
@@ricardomurillo5205
Thanks, I'll have to check that out.
He's not that pro-Capitalism, he's actually doing the pix and mix same with his Religion for Atheist. But you're right that he would not advocate for cutting it down, Capitalism is like Religion that we couldn't get rid of. So, the best thing we could do is, we should find a meaningful and fulfillment on our chosen job in the Capitalist arena. And as a philosopher, that's was his message.
Isn't he adorable. I could listen to him for hours. Also what great sense of humor.
yes
discovered him a year ago, listening to his talks everyday
I am addicted
Yes! Yes! Yes! 😍
Go find School of Life videos.
He should go read a book on why people don't like capitalism. Nobody is sitting in the streets being all smug with their homelessness complaining about how that IPhone just wasn't their thing, but they sure spent 700 $ on it. Never heard such a complaint.
Consumerism is criticized as capitalism invalidates products that were the best aat the beginning of the year to, at the end of the year, sell us the same. They have to create desire, so people buy it. People are mad, because that eats up resources (material, energy and labour). And in the end all that is cared for is profit and with regards to profit there are no limits capitalism wouldn't try to crush. Kill people, ahve them work long hours, low pay, dreadful working conditions, don't pay them but rather have stuff automated.
If you have money you can get everything, but if you don't you get nothing and capitalism isn't there to give you money.
Of the five levels, Maslow's three higher levels will NEVER be satisfied by capitalism or any other economic or political system. It is the individual alone that can achieve or satisfy them.
Maybe. I do think it's up to the individual, but we all need help with our direction, questions we should consider and all that. It's my job to know myself, but reading books, listening to lectures, talking to experts can help me in my journey and THAT is, I think what he feels can be a growth opportunity for business.
For example, I've always wanted to have great conversations, and I thought I was doing a really good job. THEN I read this great book called "Crucial Conversations" which showed me what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. Without the writers putting together their research, I never would have known and probably couldn't have become any better. Now I can. AND it encourages me to continue my exploration and growth. Cheers!
@@sobrevida157 Reading a book is not capitalism helping you achieve your higher needs. People in countries that don't have capitalist economies read books too. Your example is absurd.
@@jaredprince4772 Thaks for your thoughts. Certainly reading a book is not capitalism, but producing the book can be. I watch lectures on youtube which is a product of capitalism. I am communicating with you with tools produced by capitalism, and your thoughts help me analyze my thinking and become a better person. I agree that personal growth occurs inside our own skins, but we can be influenced and educated from the outside, and some of those outside things can be a product of businesses.
Maybe I have a muddled view of what capitalism is. Is all business capitalist, or does business become capitalistic when it prioritizes profits over people?
@@sobrevida157 Capitalism produces nothing. People produce things. Capitalism is an economic framework. Socialism doesn't produce anything but people in socialist countries do. People use the tools within whatever economic system they operate to help them produce the things they choose.
I'll believe that for-profit businesses can / want to fulfill eudaemonic happiness when I see it. In fact, I see the trend going in just the opposite direction. I see them creating addictive products, and delivering those addictive products with as few employees as possible. Result: a society full of addicted, unemployed people.
Alan has a miss on this. We hate capitalism because it has enroached on the social contract and civility and evrything has been made for profit and only people who can compete and esp at the highest levels can manage to live fulfillingly.
There are some things that need to be part of social and communal pool and togetherness managed for humans and not for profit such as education, health and shelter.
There is a natural tension between the material and the spiritual. There are dreams we must chase and souls to nourish, but we are physical beings and food must also be put on the table. Neither side is less important than the other, so we must find a harmonious balance, and that begins by recognizing the virtues of both sides.
Many indiginous people and writers reject the Maslow hierarchy of needs. They say brotherhood of fellow man (tribe or mob) is a basic need, not second from the top, and literally their lives depend on it. Spiritual awakening isn’t something they strive for, it’s a birthright.
Those indigenous (spelled with an e, btw) people are wrong.
@@OCinTexile you're profoundly arrogant to say that. if someone is denied their participation in the tribal life, spiritual and material, for instance a "point the bone" kind of incident then that person may well go and sit on a rock and die. it happens.
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.
John Maynard Keynes
If "Capitalism" is coming to an end, what different names are nominated for replacement, of this continuing practice?
Knowing your Enemy is the easier half of knowing yourself, before you begin to understand "I am you and you are me and we are all together", ..only partially alienated by genetic differences in a relatively superficial way.
(Compositions of the same temporal mechanism, in principle)
That seems a very optimistic view of what future companies may seek to make their money from. Am i pessimistic in thinking the true desires will be continued to be teased and not fulfilled? Alain mentions Facebook, its a convenient way of keeping an interactive address book, but consists mostly of bragging self promotion, and envious people feeling inwardly sad that their lives are not as rich as their Facebook friends.
21:19 Is that Steve Hawking in the background?
Jack Wheeler Yes.
Jack Wheeler The title of the lecture must have attracted him
Ester Chuang LOL
Jack Wheeler I was looking at the audience to see whether they we're as exited as I am by all this information, but they looked a bit bored and tired - and then I saw Stephen Hawking. That changed my view of the audience quite a bit. xD
ZettXXII I was excited to see him too. As for the rest of the audience, they certainly don't seem to be contemplative types: their first concern, it appears, with all those folded arms and hands on chins, is critical appraisal of everything said, and I think I can glimpse de Botton feeling the pressure.
00:23 ARISTOTLE: TECHNE, SOFIA, 01:14 EUDAIMONIA
10:03 AIRBNB STORY
14:25 LINKEDIN STORY
17:57 FACEBOOK STORY
So eudaimonia will be bought in the future?
Alain’s ideas are generally spot on: insightful, actionable and empowering. His ideas, and the way he conveys them are a force for good, his mastery of philosophy and its application to everyday problems is very refreshing and inspiring, linking ancient principles with modern problems, often proving that there is little new under the sun, and that we only have to apply some tried and tested solutions to alleviate most contemporary woes...
BUT
This talk seems more of a job interview than a transmission of wisdom. Of course, accessing the power of the emperor’s (Google’s) resources is too good an opportunity to miss, we are all human and must make a living or, if our living is made, seek power and the immortality it promises. Preaching to the initiated, promising further mass customisation (there are immense profit opportunities in a more granular and microscopic intervention in even more aspects of everyday lives), offering those solutions (“there is a host of methods which could be developed to achieve this”) and citing a couple of examples so the emperor will be tempted and offer a juicy consultancy gig and, the stroke of genius, tying it all together with Aristotle, to validate and imprint a respectable veneer over the whole business, in the great imperial tradition of claiming a link to the ancient philosophers in order to legitimise the latest phase of imperialism, just like every other empire in the West, be they based on powerful cities, nations or, as now, corporations, may be too much of an intellectual contortion even for such a heavyweight as Alain.
AND SO
That the wise would wish to praise the powerful and offer services to further that power, helping them to reach deeper and deeper into the hearts and minds of the subjects is nothing new. My beef is in the fact that this thinly disguised pitch should be promoted as a balanced philosophical view, and be made public as such. Maybe a more interesting topic would be the fact that most of our communication, verbal and written, is scanned by algorithms and used to serve us ads. What would Aristotle have to say to that?
very well said
yep - thanks for directing my attention to this and shining the light - agreed. I got a shudder when i saw the words google and zeitgiest together. My first thought was the empire just bought out the resistance.
You were spot on dear friend! Google zeitgeist- quixotically oxymoronic! Alain does seem rather sub par when he’s peddling the pedantic for a payday
Bravo!
The detractors here forget that he is just as human as the rest of us, and is just as flawed. There are elements of truth in what he said in this presentation. It requires not taking all he said at face value, but to use your analytical mind to pick out the most important nuggets of wisdom and combine them into a narrative that fits your individual circumstances.
I despise Facebook and the rest of social media. It's anti-social media and doesn't address the core issue of connection. We have an entire generation being manipulated to believe they are connected to others through technology when its the exact opposite. If you want real connection, turn your effing technology off, and share physical space with those you actually want connection with and learn what it means to have meaningful conversation. The algorithms constantly being used to keep people addicted to these social media platforms are nefarious and malevolent in their nature. There's a reason why many are reverting to those things that are pre digital: Analog photography, vinyl recorded music, natural fiber clothing, etc. There is a concept called compassionate capitalism as the mission statement of some companies, but it's few and far between. When money becomes the god, that becomes the ONLY motivating factor. Pure capitalism dismisses the greater good for the sake of profit - and Google is no exception. Their original philosophy of "Do no evil" has long disappeared and it's apparent in their business practices today. I find it ironic that this is from Google, which also owns the TH-cam platform, where they white wash to appear as if they are doing no evil. Yet they regularly censor those who don't align with their so called higher SJW left leaning moral values.
I could rant on and on, but I'll get off my soap box now...
Alain sounds a lot like the guy from the TH-cam channel The school of life.
Same tone and rhythm.
+Marie tha Misanthrope Then you may be unsurprised to learn that they are in fact the same person!
+Marie tha Misanthrope No poop, Columbo
+Marie tha Misanthrope HAhAHhAhAHa.... really ;)
He is the same person behind the school of life.
It is him
Airbnb you mean all that housing in California catering to jet setting rich people's fulfillment while California is suffering from some of the worst homelessness in decades. Aristotle's utopia indeed.
So naive thinking about capitalism, especially facebook... Oh, my... Of course he is not that stupid, just the sales pitch of a good businessman...
thats very optimistic, marriage between brands and actual fulfilled needs
very optimistic indeed
Alain de Botton is such a helpful human being!
+The School of Life Why is Mr. de Botton celebrating the monetizing on the higher needs of people? I would hope for the preservation of these higher needs from the claws of the homogenising power of capitalism. The examples he cites: LinkedIn and Facebook appear as absolute nightmares to me.
+Jan Roobrouck I agree with you, Facebook do not fix the deep psychological problems in our relationships with our friends. It's grow with advertisses and it feed off our social desires and weakenesses.
I think that capitalism is inadequation with imagination of global social aims.
To be motivated by selling more and more things to other persons to the aim of bigger personnal profit will become absurd. If we provide individuals a meaningfull life aims to accomplish, they won't aspirer to sell shining bullshits on their advertise's panels to gain power and social dominance.
They could achieve happiness from the sentiment of providing to their clients these exact products to accomplish their own meaningfull life aims.
Then, in this case, capitalism wouldn't be a nightmare.
But in this case, we should probably redefine capitalism too.
Excuse me for my language, i'm not english.
@@SitcomIxajelEyes But micro-tracking your clients, and plotting psychological traps for personal gain is going to help this pursuit of meaningful life?The whole point of why people are pissed off at Facebook, is that it's using data it collects of them as a product to be sold to the highest bidder, and usually to advertising agencies that craft SAME psychological traps to promote various snake oil they sell as the next best thing.
In what way? This talk is a salesman pitching a fools paradise.
"Why don't people like capitalism", obvious: it drains all lust for life out of you. The real problem is that still too much people like it far too much.
haha, you should see how socialism does at that.
Got me on 11:50 while 11:54 'the underlying promise of travel is much deeper...we will be satisfied by journeying abroad'. Alain is mint! Well-funny dude. Spot-on about everything!
listen- his beauty is in how he speaks, it is amazing
is this when i realize that The School of Life too is the next narcissistic echo chamber for the upper class? - this thing so removed from the reality of the masses scraping bye, in a type of capitalism that would have been deemed predatory before the reagan-thatcher reactionary return to a 19th century type of capitalism, that serves an antisocial combo of financiers and grandiose nationalistic governments. this is why we hate capitalism, 'cause this capitalism is antisocial, specially in light of climate change, and i'm sure they'd agree on Volcano: it's not logical the way we're going.
and this capitalism creates tons of psycho-social stress that humanity could be spared, it makes us nihilistic, and not in the philosophically aware sense, but in the short-term survival type of existence, and in a social prison, instead of a genuine natural environment where natural selection would be a fairer game than this corporate neofeudalism will ever be.
Also, remember who invented google and how it came with that 'don't be evil' that didn't stand the rapacious nature of neoliberal wall street? this is why we hate you, 'cause the nature of your unchecked profits damages the future of everyone. you bunch of new and not improved 'upper class twits' rationalizing your privilege, are a shame to the collective intellect. and it's really showing.
Alain alway hating on romanticism 😂😂
lol
The era of "post-romanticism" or "realistic romanticism" 😋
Thoroughly.... hahahahahha
Yeah, he really dumbed it down. Romanticism is also about understanding ourselves as part of something larger, which is also intrinsic to Eudaimonia . Art, in this period, is often about achieving the sublime, transcending our sense that we can understand the universe as if it were a machine. Ironically, this belief in the clockwork universe born of the Enlightenment, is itself merely an instinct. People believe it without reflection, which is Botton's straw-man critique of Romanticism in the first place.
It's too bad; I like his application of Aristotle to today, but his misunderstanding of Romanticism puts him squarely in the Idealism camp of 'all you got to do is' level up to the Platonic ideal of Capitalism and it will work fine. I actually agree that we have to start from what we've got: Capitalism. But, without a real deep critique of what's wrong with it, you're not going to transcend the self-destructive trajectory we're on. His point about not fulfilling the brand's promise is just the very thin surface of how the very nature of Capital must evolve.
@@JoshuaAugustusBacigalupi - The real problem with Capitalism is that it is totally dependent on an ever increasing growth - as Marx pointed out, that is impossible, and will end in collapse.
Global Warming should also speed that collapse along nicely.
i came here for insight and i feel ive been sold ideas at rapid fire pace.
can he talk any faster so as to avoid completely being followed or criticized?
EXCELLENT TALK. LOVE ALAIN.
Was it only me or that's Stephen hawkings in the Audience
Am I the only one who saw Stephen hawking at 10:02
People want stuff without having to work for it... That's why...
my heart dropped when I saw Hawking and Hassabis!!!
Is Facebook not actually making people lonelier? Air bnb sucks! i live in an apartment in Vancouver, Canada which is infested with it and it raises issues on so many different levels.
is this man behind the youtube channel 'The School of Life'
abby thewasteland yes.
4:08 "We believe that people's best chance of finding fulfilment comes from not thinking too hard about why they're doing it"
In truth, people's best chance of finding fulfilment comes from not thinking too hard about how well it's going.
Monetize our psychological and emotional needs... that sounds so terrible!!! We have that in Japan where people are so strongly seperated that they rent a family to experience happiness! But the time will run out and you will be alone again and then every part of your lonelines will come back double so hard!!! All he said is what we have to do in the future, that sounds nice but he did not say one word about how to do it!!! And if you try to think about ways it is disturbing...
lol
Does anyone know of more differentiated arguments about this topic whether companies and ai are able to fulfill deep human needs? Please post them in the comments
WOW -- HUGE confusion over something that is very SIMPLE. He talks like it was / is CAPITALISM that somehow puts us / drives us into consumerism and acquiring a lot of things of little value. Anyone out there actually believe THAT?
CAPITALISM is simply an, or name for an environment or marketplace defined by society and/or Governments in which people function. It has NOTHING to do with WHO is in control, what people produce, sell or buy, etc. CAPITALISM in particular is a marketplace where anyone can invent, design, create, produce anything they want that they can sell for whatever someone else is willing to pay or exchange - basic trade, as opposed to other systems like socialism / communism where people are not free, but the governments define / dictate what people can produce and sell and how much they can sell it for, etc. - which has ALWAYS proven to destroy societies throughout history. A dramatic recent example is Venezuela. The people in control try to deceive and convince the people that Capitalism is to blame for the problems - to lead them to dislike it (because it is the best for the people and takes away / eliminates their control) and to look to the Gov for help, something better, etc., so that THEY can maintain and increase THEIR power and control over everyone. Socialism / Communism always destroys - robs the wealth from the people - transferring it to the few in control at the top - which is what they are convincing many to go along with today and why there is IMMENSE DEBT and HUGE problems in the U.S., and everywhere.
Lol.
Keep buying the government lie. Nothing happens in isolation. No single cause of anything and if you make it that simple then you're the simple one
First book I read was Status Anxiety, and it was so great. He does not look so good here. A great speaker and writer, but I wonder if he has been getting cancer treatments or something. I hope to read many more Botton books in the future.
Help!!! They are going to commoditize the soul.
LOL have you heard about religion?
Beautifully naive. The business of news is entertaining its share of the market.
I think there is something inherently limited in a large platform model in terms of being able to answer deep needs, and that is it will be anonymous. The problem is that individuals hope to be seen. The closest I’ve seen a service or business achieve “eudimonia” is the Shinkansen in Japan. It has physically connected the people of the country safely, efficiently at good value for 50 years (not a single passenger death). But, can it really psychologically connect people? No. Individuals are going to have to do the last leg of the inner work. Society at large can help by actively teaching emotional intelligence.
Most likely what will happen is that companies will not make overtures to the next level of Maslow's hierarchy, but will instead turn the entire pyramid upside down-similarly to what Ayn Rand did.
"The best way to understand Ayn Rand is to recognize that she simply inverted Maslow's hierarchy of needs, starting with the self-actualized übermensch-still dependent on farmers, mind you-and ending at the bottom with the foraging masses." - Eli Khamarov
You can't fulfill higher needs directly with money. You sure can pay someone to guide you on your own journey, but that counseling must never be motivated by sheer capitalist agendas. A counselor needs to primarily be interested in the client and only secondarily in money to finance their own life. Competition in the capitalist sense is not an adequate tool for providing people with the help they need. Capitalizing on serving higher needs will only lead to more people trying to make a quick buck instead of actually caring for patients. Just like doctors who only are doctors for the money not because they care about helping others.
Costumer satisfaction - Eudaimonia (spelled in Greek as follows "evdemonia" not as "udaimonia") Meaning "feeling satisfaction" "being content".
When mr Alan said that word I wasnt sure what he said😅
not thinking to hard .........our mission to learn to be more in our heart and feelings, systems being a evolutionary learning in this time and that is the most exciting journey
i agree with alain about the mysterious disappearance of the psychological, in business, education, life ... however, i would suggest that the psychological is incompatible with our present socio-economic system. perhaps thats why it's 'disappeared'?
Are we forgetting that making the higher needs the business of capitalism this will be indefinitely exploited?
Could you imagine the psychological damage that could occure when you motivate human well being by profit?
If any corporation can actually fulfill any of these aspirations, they will clearly be highly valued & differentiated in the market. To the extent this occurs, capitalism ensures it will succeed in generating revenue. The skepticism I read in these comments is a lack of belief such businesses can exist. To that point, the net effect of franchises like WalMart is to commoditize “stuff”, leaving higher services as the primary high margin businesses of the “first-world”. However you can imagine the price tag! This level of service will not be equitably available.
Is no one going to talk about Stephen Hawking just in the audience at 21:21?
i'm not so sure you can monetize the higher needs as such. too many variables. outcomes too subjective. and our higher needs for connection, or fulfillment, are just not that transactional. I think the examples of trying to monetize higher needs are education, counseling, life coaching. how would one go about a more precise monetization of higher needs?
'Monetize' the higher needs? Well, I'm pretty frustrated given what we saw with 'lower needs' consumerism! The lecture had a good start, but it failed on delivering the promise of 'thinking outside the box'.
I think that the fact that a system needs to adjust and "correct" itself in order to move up on the pyramid of needs and compete with the left, which seems to have reached that goal at least philosophicaly, is fundamentally flawed. The capitalist system as we know it today is based on consumerism and selfishness, so by removing those attributes or "correcting" them we are changing the core of the system, thus admitting that it was flawed.
We seem to have gotten nowhere in the wisdom department.
Surely corporations would attempt to sell to our higher needs in much the same ways as they do with basic needs ; by deciding for themselves what these needs should be for all people. This would be incorrect and potentially as unfulfilling and exploitative as consumerism is now, if not even more so. That is of course dependent upon corporations being capable of conceptualising higher needs -business sense and sales techniques will only go so far- these people would need to first understand for themselves what they wish to teach or sell to others. They would likely be far out of their depth. Those in pursuit of endless profits aren’t typically the kind disposed to philosophy and psychology in any meaningful and fulfilling way. A Stoic hermit is a Stoic hermit - a tech entrepreneur is a tech entrepreneur, their goals and desires drive them in opposite directions more often than not.
Imagine doing a speech for a small crowd like this and then spot Stephen Hawking in the front row.
I agree it's not about money, it's about being with your friends everyday, spending time with your family, if you're more interested in your spiritual and psychological needs then earning money check out the twelve tribe communities, or each member is valued for the skills that God has given them, each member exercises their skills help everybody else
This seems to contradict his opinion in his debate against Steven Pinker and Matt Ridley. He seems to be saying here, that our tech will lead to our increased happiness.
He is saying that it CAN lead to fulfillment, so long as we change the course we are currently set on.
I was coming up with his AEI idea as he was leading into it. I love that idea. We need a sophisticated OTC self aware identity test. like those weird internet test that tell you was Disney character you are, but way better.
It would have the AI to be able to be like a friend you talk to about your problems by first "listening", then making verbal suggestions based on your mood level answers.
Good grief, Alain. Your glowing eudaimonia-for-sale first has to deal with the huge elephant in capitalism you never mentioned: wage-slavery, which blocks happiness. After all, Aristotle would tell you that anyone who has to sell their labor is out of the game of seeking Sophia. That’s approximately all employees. You talk as if your choice of a job might be an error, as if there is as much free choice of jobs (work for a master) as breakfast cereal. What enlightened entrepreneur can sell people freedom? Master/Slave, Lord/Serf, Boss/worker, Bezos/Drudge. Too bad, I have enjoyed some of Alain in the past.
This gentleman actually offers criticism of advertising and how those who are more easily duped by the many techniques of contemporary advertising often become dismayed. If one actually dislikes capitalism that assessment would seem to betray a rather profound ignorance of political and economic history. Capitalism has brought more wealth to more people than any other economic system yet devised by humankind. Obviously, the acquisition of 'sophia' has always been realized through practices outside of economic affairs.
If your interested in the intension of Artificial Emotional Intelligence you should check out Affectiva and Beyond Verbal. They both have YT CHANNELS or apps - i suggest the API have potential to know you better than you think you do.
Wrong job = yes. Right partner = yes. Health so far so good. 2 out of three aint bad. My 62 yr old experience tells me if you make mistakes in any of these you will end up homeless, ostricised, called a bum and probably die prematurely, especially in western society. I managed to turn the wrong job around and changed sectors and learned to stop hating my penultimate employer. Hate destroys the hater. It is vitally important to cheerfully ignore advertisers and get on with your lives,
Timepiece?
People don't like capitalism but they don't have an alternative at this time. They used to have an alternative and it failed due to dictatorship and excessive use of force to impose it.
regarding advertising - you're spot on alain!
Talking too fast ; like after a run....somehow his speech "promises" some sort of AHA moment but I didn"t get it, sorry....
My focus was on his wird choice of hair style
Don't think he had much of a choice
Did this dude speak at the Bilderburg meeting recently? LOL I'm starting to notice some things... "grill master" HAHA
There's a test called Myers Squibb to match people with careers at which they'd feel most fulfilled. I think it'll address 3/4 of his issues.
It was even old hat when Botton was delivering the talk and he looks so poained by the whole process and the audience looks rather non-plussed.
Because Alain is not an economist to discuss capitalism. He's a very good philosopher. They came to hear about philosophy that's why they are not too thrilled.
I am sure this talk gave birth to "WOKE branding". All the marketing guys sitting here took note and once again did the same thing they have always done but under the guise of some lofty ideals.
How naive we were to think facebook was investing in psychology for a good reason lol or for that matter business in general, something that is profit driven must maintain unnatural amounts of investment (it must create reason other businesses offering the same services cannot survive - take for example googles graps on search engines) ; and if it turns to psychology to stimulate that investment rate, this should terrify us not comfort us.
This is end-stage capitalism when it begins to sell you on your deepest desires and needs. It's time to move past capitalism and unto new systems adequate to the times.
I think a company focusing more on it's customers' "higher" needs is much more appropriate than a company focusing on some ill defined and controversial idea like "social justice" and "Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity."
Airbnb’s new commercials in spring 2021 are more focused on family connections and sentimentality.
Absolutely superficial
Alain de Botton is advertising for Aristotle, Airnbnb, Facebook and LinkedIn etc...
Life: "The Pursuit of Maturity"
I enjoy Alain de Botton, but this is extremely off the mark. People don't dislike capitalism primarily because it falls short of its advertised promise. People dislike capitalism because it exploits people, depends on extracting resources from poorer countries, the profit motive as extremely socially and environmentally damaging, the commodification of every area of life, the way it interconnects with constructs like race, gender, ability and class to keep people selling their labour at exploited prices.
You talk about an airbnb owner and its eudaimonic promise, but have you considered the gentrification airbnb has causes? How it has distorted the housing market? The ethics of people renting to travellers at very high prices that local people could never afford thereby affecting housing supply? What does Aristotle have to say about these issues? And why are these obvious problems never approached or discussed by the School of Life..?