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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

#521

Post by em-bee »

shaman1 wrote: post #285

Not religious but I remember Jesus's words (lol): > Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. > So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. > But when…

the problem is that he isn't doing it to show of his generosity, but that doing what he does is the way he gets the money in the first place. he is not independently wealthy and bragging about how he spends his money, but he figured out how he can earn money that allows him to give it to others.

so denying him publicity would deny him the very means to do good in the first place.

he gives some money to make more money

or he makes money in order to give money. in the end, what matters is how much money he keeps for himself and how much he gives away. it looks to me he is giving much more than he is keeping.

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

#522

Post by HDThoreaun »

chimen wrote: post #277
Invictus0 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrible fucking take that could only come from HN. How many cataract surgeries have you funded? How many pounds of trash have you cleaned up from the ocean? Let's hear what a big impact you're having if Mr. Beast's impact is 0.

If you give me millions of dollars for it? I could clean tons of trash yes, or fund a lot of cataract surgeries. I can found hundreds of thousands if by the end of the year I'm left with more money than I started. Awesome idea.

No one "gave" mr beast the money. He earned it by creating entertaining content. So sure he's not maximizing the good per dollar, but he's taking dollars that would not be spent on doing good and doing some good with them. If you can convince people to give you money for more efficient good deeds you'd be more altruistic than him, but I don't think you can.

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

#523

Post by [deleted] »

Aunche wrote: post #476
namarie wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, no one is claiming that people who participate are stupid for doing so. Why are you insisting on the idea that others see people in financial difficulty as stupid? Nor did I say I'm the sole arbiter of what's demeaning. We both seem to agree at least that peeing oneself in public is demeaning, but some third person might not see it that way at all.

Sorry. I didn't realize you were a different person. My point is that the only opinion who matters is the contestants. If I were a poor Mr. Beast fan, I would be offended by the original comments denial of my agency.

[deleted]

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

#524

Post by wahnfrieden »

sparrish wrote: post #505
wahnfrieden wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

productivity above all else for every human is pretty disastrous and unappealing. and when that hard work mostly goes toward the profit of some man?

A mindset of producing more than you consume has taken western cultures to where they are now - less poverty and more abundance than ever before in human history. We live freer and eat better and live longer than any of our ancestors. Why do you see it as "disastrous and unappealing"? What's the alternative? If everyone consumes more than they produce, we all end up in poverty and hunger. That sounds truly disastrous…

you have a mythologized and outdated understanding of history

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36276100

we may not have literal serfs (well, we do still) but hierarchical command under threat of violence is alive and kicking

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

#525

Post by deely3 »

seydor wrote: post #413
deely3 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. How does one can acquire money in the first place without recieving money from other people? Does your money should appear from nowhere, so you will become "true" philanthropist?

In the same sense, UNICEF could start making reality charity porn and use the proceedings for charity. Would people accept that, is that ethical? No. Their public campaigns are sensitive and don't slather the faces of hungry children on youtube for advertisers. I find it weird that i need to explain the difference.

For me its very strange argument.

So, basically, hungry people, or people in dire straits, or chronically ill people will not accept money that comes from porn? Why? Whats wrong with porn made by consent adults?

Please explain why you think its weird.

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

#526

Post by em-bee »

goodpoint wrote: post #406
wnkrshm wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MrBeast is exactly the media phenomenon a broken system would come up with in some 80s cyberpunk movie, as a bandaid to give people the illusion of hope: the 'happy hour' show in a boring dystopia. That is not MrBeasts fault, it's the environment's. Say you see MrBeast give thousands of people help, and you have the same problem as these people - sure, you're happy for the other people but why didn't you get any help…

> MrBeast is exactly the media phenomenon a broken system would come up with in some 80s cyberpunk movie, as a bandaid to give people the illusion of hope: the 'happy hour' show in a boring dystopia. Nicely put. Some people claim that MrBeast's actions are better than nothing, but the money he's using are not growing on trees. The same money could have been used to fund a fair health system, where people receive trea…

The same money could have been used to fund a fair health system

no it could not. it would take a lot more than that to fund healthcare.

as it is MrBeast is doing the best he can with the means available to him.

in order to do anything better it would take every member of our community to push for a government will actually implement such changes. the problem is, i don't see many people pushing, and i see a lot of people pushing back. things won't get better until that changes.

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

#527

Post by em-bee »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #487
operator-name wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://nitter.lacontrevoie.fr/pookleblinky/status/130932576... In doing good, Mr Beast bring to light the uncomfortable lack of support we provide as a society.

Mr beast is not able to upend society and convince enough voters to provide a better support system. You’re advocating for doing nothing, that’s what would happen if he focused on politics instead of fun videos.

i don't see the parent comment as suggesting that pointing out the lack of support in our society is a bad thing. personally i think pointing out how the social net is failing is exactly what we need. if that is really the effect that his videos have then that is good.

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

#528

Post by em-bee »

gota wrote: post #481
superhuzza wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My criticism would be that it's local change vs trying for structural change. Why don't those people already have access to surgery?" The reality is that Mr.Beast will not be changing the entire U.S. healthcare system. And that hundreds got life changing surgeries they wouldn't otherwise have gotten. Do you think if you asked those people, they would say Mr. Beast is predatory? Would they have preferred that he Mr.…

> The reality is that Mr.Beast will not be changing the entire U.S. healthcare system. The reality is that Mr Beast has a better shot at it than 99.99% of americans; the argument is he won't take that shot because he prefers to be Mr Beast Not to mention this is not all or nothing. He could flip or decide hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of votes, in favour of candidates that do want to reform the healthcare sys…

The reality is that Mr Beast has a better shot at it than 99.99% of americans

better by what margin? given that the likelyhood of anyone else making that change is almost zero, even if his chances were 10 times as high, that is still not enough to make any dent.

part of the problem here is thinking that changing the system can only be done by some single person with superhero powers, when in reality it takes a mind change in all of society. the US healthcare system will not change until everyone starts demanding that change.

the best MrBeast can do is to influence his audience, but he'll need to convince more than a few million people before a change can happen.

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

#529

Post by em-bee »

mihaic wrote: post #501
avereveard wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He managed to build a self sustaining form of altruism that doesn't depend on taxes or a field of call centers harassing people for donations, that has to be worth something, regardless of the ultimate motive.

My worry for instance is that what he's doing in not scalable on the level of a society, yet it's polluting our public thoughts so much that better solutions are stifled.

which better solutions would that be?

at the moment i believe the most important thing that our society needs is more awareness that there is a problem to begin with. without that awareness no change can happen.

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

#530

Post by moomoo11 »

batmaniam wrote: post #219
moomoo11 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the 1000 people who can see now or hear “got one fish for a day”? Come on bro. It should be up to society to ensure the health check doesn’t return just 200 OK but that everything else that makes that 200 OK possible is also actually fine. MrBeast is an entertainer who happens to make a brand by doing stuff that does some impactful thing. More than most people. Now those 2000 people who can see and hear.. maybe th…

Right, that's on the individual level. You and I can donate to a medical organization that helps people 'see and hear' too. Or fund a go-fund-me to help that person. It's great that person got immediate access to the healthcare they needed with this money. We can do basically what Mr Beast does right now if we pooled our resources together. The bigger issue is why that healthcare is inaccessible to them in the first…

What is he supposed to do? He’s inspiring people while making money.

Unlike a lot of people like yourself who just say a bunch of brain dead vapid shit that gets nothing done.

All people need to do is vote for the change they want to see if you want to see societal change. Yet they don’t.

It’s that simple. Not my problem people don’t show up.

There are maybe 100k super rich people in USA. 300 million everyone else.

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