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On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

coldhealing.substack.com

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Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#221

Post by unsupp0rted »

unglaublich wrote: post #31
unsupp0rted wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really try to block them but somehow Youtube keeps finding new ones to put in my feed every single day. How can I tell Youtube: * I will never watch a Mr. Beast video * I will never watch a music video * I will never watch a sports video * I will never watch a video about cars * I will never watch a video about Minecraft, or any video game at all

- Click 'not interested' whenever you see such a suggestion. - Never click the suggestion! - Like and subscribe to content that you want to see instead.

I go out of my way to select the 3-dot menu and select not only "not interested", but then go to the second step of saying "because I don't like this content". It makes zero difference.

User is "not interested" in this Football video because he "doesn't like this content"? User did the same for 15 Football videos?

Perhaps user just has been exposed to enough Football videos yet.

Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#222

Post by colinmhayes »

pjc50 wrote: post #185
SkipperCat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On many levels I agree with you. But, you can also look at this thru the paradigm of the "hero's journey". A normal person, plucked from the masses is given a harrowing mission. If they survive, there is glory ($$$), if not, then there is failure (Internet ridicule). Granted, Mr. Beast is not giving us the story of Luke Skywalker, but I can understand the rational of the person taking the challenge. For most people w…

Yes, but the difference here is that the mission is inherently unnecessary. Consider the JFK speech and what went before choosing to go to the moon: "But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?" Perhaps we've conquered all the naturally "hard" things and are left only with artificial chal…

All missions are kind of unnecessary. Youtubes entire mission is unnecessary, it's nothing but entertainment and some education. Mr. Beasts videos clearly provide a lot of people with joy considering how many subscribers he has. Hard for me to say he's not providing value to those people.

Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#223

Post by mcv »

ryan93 wrote: post #207
mcv wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no idea how you actually come up with a reasonable solution for this since communism/socialism clearly failed. You could simply give people more than just some drips that keep them on the edge of desperation. Whether or not you consider that socialism, it has been quite successful in a lot of countries. The failure of a totalitarian dictatorship in no way implies that excessive wealth inequality is the only…

However much money your imagined society gives out people will still gladly do game shows for extra cash. Unless you want to be honest and say no one should have even a single extra penny to spend how they please

Possibly, but hopefully it would be driven by a desire to participate instead of desperation. That's the thing I want to take out of the equation.

Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#224

Post by colinmhayes »

elil17 wrote: post #182
micromacrofoot wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's the dignity of working in a coal mine and getting black lung, the dignity of lifting heavy things all day and living with chronic pain through your later years, the dignity of fulfilling inane requests from rude customers? Far too often the idea of dignity is used to repress people who are simply busting their ass for someone else to afford a meager lifestyle.

There's some dignity in doing something that has a point . Doesn't negate the need for better, safer working conditions and good pay but there's a big psychological difference between digging coal (which you know will go on to heat homes) and sitting in a circle and having the internet laugh at you.

I don't think creating videos that people enjoy has any less of a point than mining coal.

Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#225

Post by colinmhayes »

LanceH wrote: post #191
citizenkeen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox had a reality shoe where they just tortured people for money. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_(TV_series)

And a lot of people look at these "torture" situations as a battle of wills. Nobody is truly being tortured and they aren't really in a dangerous situation (generally). Fear factor is a mix of scary and disgusting, with an audience watching and thinking, "yes, no, yes, not for all the money in the world, maybe, yes". Mr Beast isn't exactly "bum fights".

Solitary confinement is "truly torture". https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-solitary-nation-show/

Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#226

Post by colinmhayes »

sweetheart wrote: post #103
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #66

>Their strict standards resulted in content that was homogeneous and boring, but safe. It’s terrifying that a man spent one hundred days in a small circle in an empty field. This isn't terrifying. People do much worse for 100x less. Prostitution and porn, for example, many times drive people to suicide. People stay on ships for months at a time without seeing their family, not too long ago, sailors would go years on…

> The author wants to live in a world where everyone gets everything at no cost: that isn't even admiribale, it's childish. Why is it childish to want a life in which you don’t need to labor to have everything you need to be happy? It’s childish to think that human beings are born worthy of a happy peaceful safe life? Why do we need to earn those things? Are they not inherent within us?

People aren't born worthy of anything. Thinking otherwise is childish. We need to earn things because they're not unlimited. Living a happy peaceful life means consuming things, if you don't provide things back no one is going to give you anything to consume.

Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#227

Post by colinmhayes »

isitmadeofglass wrote: post #139
strken wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not that badly off and have never watched a Mr. Beast video prior to this. I would gladly stay within a 300ft circle for 100 days while some dude blasted clown noises at me in return for $500k. There's a library, a garden, some exercise bands, stationery, and 3000cal/day of food. I did 21 days isolation in an apartment at the start of the pandemic, which is 20% of the way there except with less floorspace. There'…

Sure, people enter in willingly. And you’d be able to find quite a lot of Poot people who’d do really shitty stuff and let you be extremely shitty to them for money. But so what? He’s still kidnapping and terrorizing poor people and excusing it by paying them off. And Better yet he’s doing so for profit, but he’s effectively have them sign a contract that means they don’t get paid if he gets them to break. It screams…

> He’s still kidnapping

No he literally is not kidnapping anyone. Shawn could have walked out of the circle at any time. I don't understand why you think more choices is a bad thing. Let people labor however they want. If that means "humiliating" themselves for 100 days for millions on youtube so be it.

> If it was just about giving money to poor people there would be no need for the sick games he plays with them

No one would watch the video if he was just giving away money and therefore he wouldn't be giving away the money.

Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#228

Post by colinmhayes »

b800h wrote: post #69
hackerlight wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can it be unethical if the person knows full well what's coming with no surprises, and the person judged that it was in their best interest to do it? That'd be saying it's unethical to provide someone with a benefit-cost > 0 which they've agreed to, and I don't see why that should be true. I'd agree it's unethical only if their cognition was compromised (meaning he wasn't capable of analyzing the costs and benefi…

There used to be a website where someone gave homeless people money to fight each other. Perhaps it still exists. Is that ethical?

Is boxing ethical? People make choices because they believe it will make their life better. If the homeless people think the money is worth the fight that means the website is literally making their life better and therefore ethical.

Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#229

Post by colinmhayes »

prepend wrote: post #73
gjulianm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm no fan of him, I think you might be too harsh. > is to imagine he’d given them the money up front and told them that to leave his enter-torture-ment they have to pay up a ransom matching the initial gift. People enter those challenges fully knowing how they're going to go. It's random, rules don't matter, you might get money you don't expect or not get money you expected. The point at which they get the mon…

> People enter those challenges fully knowing how they're going to go. People who have financial need aren’t able to clearly decline and have agency over their decision. Asking someone who supports a family if they will degrade themselves for $500k if not really a fair question and people will say yes. It’s like saying that people who blow their boss do it knowing fully well what they’re getting into. There is a powe…

People will say yes because it's a good deal. Obtaining 500k is incredibly difficult and requires a full decade of work for most people. How is creating a business that enables people to get a decades worth of work done in 100 days unethical? No one is forced into these videos. Everyone can leave just as well off as they started. If the videos didn't exist the people who got the money would be much worse off. In fact, I'll go ahead and say shutting down his channel would be unethical because it removes the choice he is giving people.

Re: On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

#230

Post by colinmhayes »

igorkraw wrote: post #7
zemvpferreira wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a content creator Mr Beast only acts as a conduit for what we, the audience, are willing to pay for. It's not he who is the monster but us.

While true I love how the norm of discussion about this is bouncing between two things as if they are mutually exclusive. Yes Mr. Beast is just following incentives that youtube + attention economy + other factors created for him. But also : he chose to do that. I've personally walked away from good gigs when I was eating rice and beans because they didn't align with my values. He doesn't seem to realise or care. And…

Mr. Beast is giving away millions of dollars. Imo his channel is unequivocally making the world a better place by providing entertainment and giving people the choice to forego a decade of work for 100 days of humiliation.
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