Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 565 posts

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

#161

Post by brvsft »

ipnon wrote: post #121

Mr. Beast has to be one of if not the most charitable YouTubers. He’s an effective altruist fever dream, curing disease and easing poverty through free entertainment. There are many worded YouTubers for the world. Perhaps it’s just his ostentatiousness that rubs people the wrong way. Do we want our saints to keep things low key?

> free entertainment

It's not free. Like anything else, there is an opportunity cost for watching garbage. Mr. Beast and content-creators like him are precisely the reason my children won't have free access to YouTube if not smartphones entirely. He creates mindless garbage content that helps rots peoples' brains. Yes, plenty of other content on YouTube is no better, but this stuff actually gets marketed to people including children, and its aggregate millions if not billions of manhours of people mindlessly staring at this shit is not at all a good thing. The fact that some of it happens to result in people having an affliction cured doesn't reverse any of the wastefulness.

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

#162

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

The MrBeast video where he pays for people's eye surgery felt icky to me and it took me a while to really figure out why. On one hand, I think it's great that people in need were able to receive assistance. On the other hand, why is it that it took some rich YouTuber to pay for their surgeries in the first place? As I understand it a lot of these eye surgeries have been fairly standard for decades, so why isn't there already a government program that pays for this? No paperwork or other bullshit, you just go to an eye doctor and they give you the surgery. It seems like such obvious low-hanging fruit, and it would be a massive political win. Maybe manufacture one fewer jet to pay for thousands of surgeries?

Maybe Medicare For All and these big medical reform programs are too ambitious and unlikely to go through. But maybe we could at least help raise the floor for what medical conditions Americans are treating by default.

If you're reading this, consider calling up your representative and telling them: "Hey, I think it's kinda crazy that we have a safe and proven surgery that lets people see, and I think it should be available for anyone that needs it, figure out how to make it work."

How many people even need these eye surgeries? I bet that raising enough money to pay for this surgery for every single American wouldn't even cost that much (in relative terms). So going the charity path would probably also be viable. However if it's something that enough people agree is worth doing, why not just use your tax dollars to pay for it? Who's going to seriously oppose a bill for giving people the ability to see?

You know what would be a win? Tuning in to the State of the Union next year and hearing: we eliminated this form of blindness from the USA.

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

#163

Post by libraryatnight »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #145
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 videos make hundreds of millions of people happy and probably more likely to donate or be charitable. That seems like more than zero impact to me.

He's a greedy snot manufacturing consent for some kind of hunger games dystopia.

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

#164

Post by blackoil »

paulpauper wrote: post #37
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…

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 participating in some manner, but seriously, he's helping folks who need it. Every day people. the federal govt. spends trillions on aid without having to film people. The whole reason Mr Beast is able to give anything away at all is because of…

Federal govt. has a right to violence to collect those trillions and they are pretty inefficient in spending it.

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

#166

Post by kcb »

ethbr0 wrote: post #159
adamwk wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s philanthropy the same way Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is philanthropy

No, because the whole point of game shows is they restrict how often someone wins the jackpot, to make it profitable. Afaik, all of MrBeast's stuff is conducted with the rule that at least 1 person is going to win the jackpot.

> No, because the whole point of game shows is they restrict how often someone wins the jackpot, to make it profitable.

The most famous game shows of all time don't work this way.

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

#167

Post by mkaic »

iamleppert wrote: post #136

He isn’t genuine. In his origin story you’ll notice he talks about trying lots of different strategies to maximize his views and engagement. That’s his only real goal. He stumbled upon his current formula by accident after significant iteration. It strikes me that he could have just as easily be producing any kind of harmful content if the rules of what’s acceptable to society and YouTube were different. It just so h…

The way I see it, if those lonely elderly people's days are brightened by being given a flower, who cares what the intentions of the flower-giver were?

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

#168

Post by HDThoreaun »

paulpauper wrote: post #37
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…

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 participating in some manner, but seriously, he's helping folks who need it. Every day people. the federal govt. spends trillions on aid without having to film people. The whole reason Mr Beast is able to give anything away at all is because of…

Mr beasts viewers give him money because they enjoy the spectacle. Without the spectacle all the good he’s able to do would not be done. Sure his viewers could just give the money to the government instead, but without the spectacle they don’t want to. Isn’t convincing people to be more charitable good? How is that not what Mr beast is doing

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

#169

Post by asveikau »

Timber-6539 wrote: post #111
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.

> Despite what you've been taught, every act of charity comes from a selfish need (ego).

This may be some kind of projection or just your personal opinion of society and human motivation. You aren't inside the brains of every human and can't possibly know everyone's motivations at all times. It's quite possible that some or many of them experience authentic altruism.

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

#170

Post by sneed_chucker »

scottLobster wrote: post #41
triyambakam wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could not let them watch it if it makes you uncomfortable.

Then they'll resent you and watch it on their friends' phones anyway when they can. And they'll suffer socially because they won't be able to talk with other kids at the lunch table about the most recent episode.

ah yes, the modern western "I can't do my job as a parent" excuse
Post reply on HN