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MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

nytimes.com

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Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#111

Post by Timber-6539 »

chimen wrote: post #80

It's not altruism if it's your source of income. Sorry but I don't buy this bs. He's doing it to generate income, that's all. Altruism is "unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others" but we have quite the opposite here - a selfish way of milking poor people for emotions in order to generate income. Real altruism is hard and done only by a few. Literally EVERY man/woman/child on this planet will say yes…

Despite what you've been taught, every act of charity comes from a selfish need (ego). Whether that is predatory or not from the standpoint of the donor, I'll leave that up to you to decide.

And to be clear, his acts of charity have made an impact in the people who have benefited from it. Whether the public response is positive or negative is besides the point.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#113

Post by azurelake »

kortilla wrote: post #64
voidhorse wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the discomfort comes from a deep, pretty much unconscious understanding we all have about how capitalism, taken to it logical extremes, will always perpetuate inequality to the extreme degree, and how gross inequality donned up in the guise of philanthropy is still gross inequality . His content is a direct display of our economic system at the limit, at which point it becomes absurd. When you recognize that…

This has nothing to do with capitalism, it does have to do with the power dynamic though when one person can easily have a significant impact on another person’s life though. The same uncomfortablenesses would arise if this were videos of some govt leader going around granting early retirement to people.

Totalitarianism is much different because ultimately some human is making all the decisions on the allocation of capital. The uncomfortableness that the parent is describing isn’t with the power disparity, it’s with the fact that our world is increasingly controlled by paperclip maximizers.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#114

Post by irishloop »

seydor wrote: post #106
no_wizard wrote: post #3

I find it interesting that people are upset that this, for lack of a better term, philanthropy achieved by MrBeast, while yes, its for the likes, the YouTube popularity, its a cottage industry of "feel good" that he's producing, is somehow bad? I wonder how sustainable this will be ultimately, but it seems like he's able to just give all this stuff away and help people, and yes, they have to agree to be being filmed…

This is philanthropy porn. He is not the philanthropist because he doesnt haev the money in the first place, he is using other people's money to perform charity on camera. I 'm not very religious but it is a tale as old as humans. The christian gospels called out this hypocricy for a reason: > Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the…

But if we never celebrate altruism or philanthropy, are we not, perhaps, discouraging it? Don't we want to instill these cultural values of giving?

It seems to me that keeping quiet is a kind of purity ritual that perhaps does more harm than good as well.

Personally I don't care about MrBeast one way or the other, he doesn't affect my life in any appreciable way, if he makes money giving other people money, cool, I can think of a thousand worse ways to make money.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#115

Post by andromeduck »

voidhorse wrote: post #59
xrd wrote: post #4

My kids love Mr Beast. I'm uncomfortable with it and can't put my finger on it. It feels like he makes life look like you stand a good chance of having someone walk in and give you $100,000. Maybe there is no harm in thinking that? But it feels like the same thing as buying a lottery ticket. I guess YouTube is free? But is the time spent on that channel worth it over doing other things? I admire the approach he takes…

I think the discomfort comes from a deep, pretty much unconscious understanding we all have about how capitalism, taken to it logical extremes, will always perpetuate inequality to the extreme degree, and how gross inequality donned up in the guise of philanthropy is still gross inequality . His content is a direct display of our economic system at the limit, at which point it becomes absurd. When you recognize that…

This is much more akin to old timey aristocracy than anything else.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#117

Post by scrollaway »

chimen wrote: post #80

It's not altruism if it's your source of income. Sorry but I don't buy this bs. He's doing it to generate income, that's all. Altruism is "unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others" but we have quite the opposite here - a selfish way of milking poor people for emotions in order to generate income. Real altruism is hard and done only by a few. Literally EVERY man/woman/child on this planet will say yes…

This is a lot of unsourced, completely gut feeling statements about someone’s philanthropic impact to essentially just have an excuse to shit on them. I wonder how much your own life has impacted the world out there.

Look I don’t know mrbeast, beyond the team trees stuff from a while back. But YAWN at claiming someone’s actions do more harm than good just because your gut says it’s inspired pranksters.

Put your comment in context.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#118

Post by [deleted] »

pavlov wrote: post #89
no_wizard wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they do, but he’s doing it without any bureaucracy. No real strings for the recover. Government aid is both more political and often has strings attached or requirements. Very different things entirely, nor is it sufficient

Now imagine a government that helps people with no strings attached, without making them feel like shit about needing help, and no cameras pointed at their face either. Who says it can’t be done?

[deleted]

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#119

Post by BurningFrog »

lagt_t wrote: post #20
zik wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also uncomfortable with it. There's nothing inherently wrong with philanthropy but what I'm seeing is a very successful business with an enormous and very expensive campus. MrBeast himself is very rich. So what I'm seeing is a corporation claiming to do everything for the benefit of others while actually taking a lot of the money very visibly for themselves. His channel made $54m from youtube in 2021, and probabl…

Making philanthropy profitable is kinda genius.

It also makes the philanthropy sustainable.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#120

Post by kagevf »

chimen wrote: post #80

It's not altruism if it's your source of income. Sorry but I don't buy this bs. He's doing it to generate income, that's all. Altruism is "unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others" but we have quite the opposite here - a selfish way of milking poor people for emotions in order to generate income. Real altruism is hard and done only by a few. Literally EVERY man/woman/child on this planet will say yes…

> his actions do more good than harm

I feel like you meant the opposite. . .

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