461–470 of 634 posts
The reason this act breaks a moral boundary is that it subverts a principle of "ends" [1]. A genuine random act of kindness cannot occur if it's being filmed. Filming the act turns it into a virtue display. It also turns the subject into an object of utility, a means and not and end in themself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Ends
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Is that last part really a Christian (in a wide sense) thing or just a Catholic thing? I definitely hear it at Catholic Mass but I have not experienced it at most protestant Eucharist ceremonies.
I've never been to a protestant church where the message was that we were "worthy" of the cross. Everything has always been predicated on grace which is necessarily unmerited.
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It seems like the video is for the creator and the audience… and that’s it. There seems to be little interest in the actual person given the flowers other than as a prop.
Even The Guardian couldn't help but link to the TikTok channel, point out when it was posted so you could find it easier, and post a screenshot of the video with the woman in it even though it's an article all about how she didn't want to be on camera. They're going to get tons of views!
It's like attempting to look at the negative space between news aggregator headlines and asking, "what am I not going to read here, no matter how much I read?"
Maybe the act of making something visible in the context of social viewing will become culturally inexcusable in more circles. It would be the ability of people to get offended at being shared by someone else, which is not perceived as a big deal yet, and a taboo developing that forces people to reconsider at every potential share if they will offend someone. If that doesn't happen, then this will continue for some time. It's a cultural problem.
It's sad that selective ignorance feels like a necessary virtue at times when being curious about the world is commonly taught. In effect, "the world" is what we're tempted to be interested in by nature and curiosity is a highly exploitable resource.
The video itself was quite off-putting when I first saw it. He didn't even just kindly offer her flowers. He _tricked_ her into taking them by making it sound like he just wanted her to hold them for him. She was actually being kind to him by doing him a favor, and then he basically ran away and stuck her with them. That's not kind at all, it's pushy and exploitative. As someone who doesn't usually like to accept gif…
I'm dubious this happens enough for you to even have an opinion about it. What sorts of gifts are random strangers giving you?
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The problem with public displays of virtue is that it comes off as seeking return value for the action. Virtuous acts should be done in quiet/secret and for the simple reason for it being virtuous. Seeking some other sort of value out of it (like social recognition, social credit, youtube views which end up with ad revenue) makes the act look dishonest. The act wasn't done because they were a nice person, the act was…
> Virtuous acts should be done in quiet/secret and for the simple reason for it being virtuous. Genuinely, why? As in, why is it better to do nothing then to do virtuous action that you also get some benefit from?
1. The recipient doesn't have to cop to/explain their situation that prompted the generosity,
2. The recipient doesn't feel the need to publicly acknowledge the help (which in turn implies publicly explaining that you needed help),
3. The recipient doesn't become a revenue-generator without giving their permission, as happens in this case and others like it
When done in public, these acts cease to be altruism - they're now a business exchange ("content creator" gives you something of value (flowers) in exchange for something else of value (clicks/views/clout)). Except you didn't know you were making this business deal, which is beyond slimy.
IIRC most religious texts teach to do altruism privately, for reasons such as this. Attention-seeking didn't just come about in the internet age, it just got easier.
The video itself was quite off-putting when I first saw it. He didn't even just kindly offer her flowers. He _tricked_ her into taking them by making it sound like he just wanted her to hold them for him. She was actually being kind to him by doing him a favor, and then he basically ran away and stuck her with them. That's not kind at all, it's pushy and exploitative. As someone who doesn't usually like to accept gif…
> As someone who doesn't usually like to accept gifts from random strangers I'm dubious this happens enough for you to even have an opinion about it. What sorts of gifts are random strangers giving you?
https://www.scam-detector.com/article/cd-bullies-in-new-york
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> Random acts of kindness DO happen, but are usually not captured on video. Indeed. In fact, when the act is intentionally captured on video by its performer, not only is it already very debatable that it is an act of "kindness"... but it is also obviously NOT "random"! (For the colloquial meaning of "random" of course)
You can make the case that it's not an "act of kindness" when your motive is self promotion and gratification. Also giving someone flowers is quite a cheap kindness. Help somebody in need out. Or just go clean the streets. No good content clickbait video to be made of you picking up the trash ?
That phrase, to 'remove yourself from the equation' applies here too. That leads to a better 'test' and metric.
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>> Even car accidents... I hate when a real car accident is attributed to a drunk driver when it was not. There are plenty of wrecked cars from actual drunk driving, you don't need to lie to get an example. Some people think their intentions justify their actions, even when their actions can accurately be described as "lie" or "cheat" or "for profit" or some other dishonest thing. This may be effective in many cases,…
> Random acts of kindness DO happen, but are usually not captured on video. Indeed. In fact, when the act is intentionally captured on video by its performer, not only is it already very debatable that it is an act of "kindness"... but it is also obviously NOT "random"! (For the colloquial meaning of "random" of course)
Only if you're going into the whole "every act is selfish" kind of thing.
> but it is also obviously NOT "random"! (For the colloquial meaning of "random" of course)
Why not? It only takes a few seconds to start filming.
If you mean having a camera person, that starts to get into the weeds, but it depends on how much planning there was and how it was done.
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So much of the content I see now on TikTok and other apps is totally staged, and quite often poorly staged at that. It would be interesting to know who funds the production of many of the videos, because there's obviously an advertising scheme or some sort of moneymaking ploy behind a lot of it. I think things really took off with the people who were making "gold-digger" videos, where a guy tries to talk to a girl an…
I think the most disturbing variant is where they put animals in dangerous situations (sometimes hurting them) and then "rescue" them. There's a whole industry of this shit.