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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

#231

Post by micromacrofoot »

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.

Dollar for dollar, I'll take the circle.

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

#232

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #172
randac wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to the Rogan interview, but I figured I'd mention it here too. MrBeast was just on Flagrant with Andrew Schulz for 4 hours, a day or so ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGrk7Mzm4uo This was also an interesting and fun interview which I expected to skip over fairly quickly but ended up listening to in the entirety. Some discussion over how you would lose something like 3% of viewers if somebody sne…

Yeah the interview I saw a clip out of he or a staffer stated that any mention of peeing would drop viewership. I watch woodworking youtubers and a couple of them had a behind the scenes discussion about their channels and also came to the conclusion that any wind-down loses viewers and this affects a channel. The algorithms use metrics of how long someone watches so it makes sense to end abruptly rather than have 30…

This is another great exemple of the YT algorithm making the experience of watching videos inferior in the name of profit and attention grabbing by the way.

The reason YT doesn’t want show to wind down is because it provides people with a nice and natural place to stop watching which is nice. The race towards shorter, easier, more catchy and relentless content is a race to the bottom making everyone dumber.

Watching TikTok for an hour is probably the most depressing experience I ever had when it comes to my general opinion of humanity. Yet I’m here commenting and I’m not convinced that it is a better use of my time than TikTok. Sometimes I wonder if what the internet has actually done to us was worth it.

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

#233

Post by mrguyorama »

seydor wrote: post #155
loceng wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we ignore that all of this is funded by the advertising industrial complex, advertisements which are arguably extremely harmful to society due to the cheap-shallow manipulation that occurs with them?

Should we ignore the fact that so many people watch his videos that it's impossible to ignore the number? I agree that his videos are basically a polished version of "give a homeless guy money to do something cruel". People watch them to see what people do for money. There s nothing beautiful in that, but it's a curiosity and it grabs attention. If it wasnt through ads, someone else would be funding it, i dont think…

"Someone else would do the bad thing so I'll do it instead and personally reap the rewards" has NEVER been an okay take.

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

#234

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

SkipperCat wrote: post #81
pjc50 wrote: post #38

> "Whenever I watch these videos I’m awed and scared at the lengths to which humans in the twenty-first century will go to slurp up the drips of unimaginable wealth that the algorithm leaks out through Mr. Beast." That's it, isn't it? It's the exact opposite of dignity of labour: it's compensation for degradation. The "voluntary" part is just highlighting how willing people are to trade in unnecessary misery for the…

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…

> but content providers have to give the people what they want to make a buck...

Modern entertainment really is a blight. At least when I was a kid public TV was making shows which were both entertaining and trying to uplift people. There is something slightly despicable about this race to the bottom mentality if that’s what people want, we are not guilty of feeding them garbage.

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

#235

Post by bryan_w »

bestcoder69 wrote: post #208
M4v3R wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because at the end of the day you need to obtain food, clothing, shelter and other necessities to even survive to the next day, not even mentioning doing anything for pleasure. Either through labor of your own, or by doing labor to earn money to buy these for you possibly your family. Thinking that "human beings are born worthy of a happy peaceful safe life" is childish - the world doesn't owe us anything, and if we…

> Thinking that "human beings are born worthy of a happy peaceful safe life" is childish - the world doesn't owe us anything, and if we want to continue living on it we have to earn it. That's just, like, your opinion, man. But, IRL there are plenty of people that require care-taking, who we never expect any labor from.

Isn't that survivorship bias? There are plenty of people that required care-taking and died of exposure.

It seems there's a capacity limit to the safety net and if you go over it, starvation ensues.

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

#236

Post by namlem »

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?

Because if no one had to work, nothing would get done, and we would not have the abundance of food and goods that we do. All that stuff is made by the labor of others.

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

#237

Post by Applejinx »

ineedasername wrote: post #140
jccalhoun wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how he is measuring it. If it is just in terms of what he gets from youtube and not advertising then it is easier to imagine. Then there is also the fact that it is probably the case that for every one of these big budget videos that don't make money he has several smaller ones that do make money. The big ones bring in the audience and the small ones bring in the money.

Yeah, but it’s strange to spinning it like “I don’t even make a profit on many of these but I still do it!” That’s nothing special at all, he simply rediscovered the concept of “loss leader”. He not doing those videos despite their lack of profit, he’s doing the because they’re the reason he has profitable content to begin with. It would be like a shaving company saying “I know it seems crazy, but we lose so much mon…

That's the business model. If somebody like him is doing things for YouTube and they are not willing to burn the money they earn to do more spectacular things, and he is, he beats them.

If he beats them, he gets more money, which he blows in order to beat them again, and so on. The winner isn't him, it's YouTube hosting him. He's lowbrow 'Ow My Balls' guy, but in reality.

It's always been like that. If somebody has a platform and they are able to benefit from somebody beating themselves into the ground for attention, they're going to subsidize that behavior, design their system to reward the guy who's willing to win at any cost. He then gets to be the attention winner and be constantly striving to be attention-getting, by any means necessary, and the PLATFORM wins and earns the actual profit.

The guy's being rewarded for exactly that behavior.

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

#238

Post by jrochkind1 »

hackerlight wrote: post #194
jrochkind1 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you offer that deal to a family member or close friend in need of money? Why not?

Definitely not, it would make me sad to subject them to that. I'd also feel pretty bad if I got them them to clean my house for money if they were in need. But that doesn't mean it's unethical, does it?

You wouldn't consider it either unkind or unethical to arrange for a needy family member to fight for money, you just wouldn't do it becuase it would make you sad? It doesn't seem an unkind thing to do, really?

But, yes, I think intentionally subjecting strangers to something that you wouldn't subject your loved ones to because it would make you sad, is at least a signal that something is likely to be unethical.

In general, I'd say profiting off of desperate people trading their dignity for money is probably unethical. Yes, I'm aware this can apply to other parts of society.

Is your opinion basically that there is no such thing as unethical employment of someone? That if someone is of sound mind, any employment conditions are always ethnical, there is basically no way for an employer to behave unethically with regard to their employees? No matter how degrading, how awful their experience is, it isn't actually possible to consider any such conditions unethical, because the desperate employee chose to engage in the employment?

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

#239

Post by throwaway12388 »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #220
dimmke wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so odd to me because this isn't my experience with Youtube at all. I just opened the homepage and it's mostly content I subscribe to and music that I've listened to before (I use Youtube for listening to DJ sets/Live music a lot.) I scrolled for a while and didn't see any Mr. Beast videos recommended. Maybe it's because I pay for Premium? I also don't use Youtube that much.

I also pay for Premium. Nevertheless Youtube ignores the likes/dislike/"not interested in this content"/"do not recommend this channel" signals. Sure, it stops recommending that Minecraft channel. So that it can recommend 3 other Minecraft channels.

its weird. i dont pay a cent but never see anything from blocked channels. Likes/dislikes has no effect though

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

#240

Post by throwaway12388 »

em-bee wrote: post #82
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

not having a youtube account seems to help. i watch different types of videos in different firefox containers and my kids watch on a different laptop. they see mr beast all the time, but i never notice him showing up for me.

I would say you are one of a few lucky ones.

"not having a youtube account seems to help"

no it doesnt. YT homepage is filled with low IQ content. Blocking his and alike channels is the only cure for now.

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