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

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

coldhealing.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 291 posts

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

#171

Post by gjulianm »

citizenkeen wrote: post #86
gjulianm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not arguing that it's good, only that it's not as exploitative as the parent made it to be. Also, until now, the most questionable thing would be the 100 days in a circle one, and the reward is $500k. I think most people, even if not in dire need, would happily go and do that. Here in the comments you already see examples of that. And, most importantly, I don't see the "coercion" anywhere. Most of the people part…

The argument is that money is coercive.

Following that line of argument, every interaction with money involved is coercive. There must be something else that defines whether there is coercion or not.

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

#172

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

randac wrote: post #161
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #61

Many people are ignoring some interesting aspects of Mr. Beasts business and instead are focusing on the content which is mostly attention grabbing, silly, ridiculous game show premises. The content isn't for me or likely many HNers but I see similarities with startups and his business model. From watching a couple of interviews, things I've picked up - when his youtube videos were grossing $20-30k a month he started…

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 30-60s of wind down.

Mr Beast's team must have second by second analytics on every video to know what works, what doesn't for the types of videos they produce.

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

#173

Post by micromacrofoot »

ycombinete wrote: post #124
bambax wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Compensation for degradation" defines most kinds of labor. To labor means to suffer, and compensation is the other word for salary. So it's not certain this is the "exact opposite" of labor; maybe it's its ulterior incarnation.

They said "opposite of dignity of labour"; not "opposite of labour".

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.

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

#174

Post by hombre_fatal »

dimmke wrote: post #129
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

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.

Yeah, my recommendations are only content I subscribe to and videos related to that.

The “related videos” sidebar next to the video doesn’t seem more willing to experiment with different content, but not so much my homepage recommendations unless I’m endless scrolling.

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

#175

Post by cainxinth »

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…

“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” for the 21st century

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

#176

Post by viridian »

I'm surprised at how many people view this as legitimately torturous. I'd happily do the same for twice as long and for half the money. Hell, Henry David Thoreau did this in the woods, on purpose, for two years, with only a brief refrain when he was arrested for not paying his taxes.

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

#177

Post by gjulianm »

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?

No, because you're specifically targeting people who are in need, and fights carry a very high risk of damage.

Unless you want to consider 99% of paid work as unethical, monetary need cannot be the only factor in considering whether something is ethical or not.

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

#178

Post by atribecalledqst »

I'm not really interested in Mr. Beast's content but there is a video from one of the engineers involved in his Squid Game recreation that I thought was pretty interesting. Seems like this guy went for three whole weeks without sleeping, just piling on hack after hack to make the event come together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdt18p-VMmQ

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

#179

Post by jrochkind1 »

hackerlight wrote: post #136
jrochkind1 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the person isn't mentally ill, but doesn't reliably have enough to eat to survive adequately, and can get it by fighting for the entertainment of others (who do have plenty to eat, and more to spare). Is that ethical, because it's a rational cost-benefit analysis? There are few people in the US who don't have enough to eat to fuel their bodies, but in other countries there are more. I am not trying to describ…

> To hypothetically say, well, sure it's unkind and disrespectful and an assault on their dignity, but it's not unethical to do to make a buck or a laugh -- what is the point of "ethics", then, exactly? But is it unkind? You're giving them a benefit (+$) and taking a cost (-dignity), and they've calculated that $ > dignity. Assuming their calculation was accurate, aren't you actually being kind? You are increasing th…

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

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

#180

Post by hombre_fatal »

antasvara wrote: post #92
mdrzn wrote: post #33

"It’s terrifying that a man spent one hundred days in a small circle in an empty field. It’s even more terrifying that this is solely at the whims of a single former Minecraft YouTube creator who happened to find the perfect niche to build a platform and happens to have a perfect sense for what his millions of anonymous viewers want from a video." Cannot agree less on this take. There's dozen of interviews with Jimmy…

Some people fundamentally have an issue with the idea of making money off of what essentially amounts to embarrassment or (depending on the challenge) light mental torture. Mr. Beast's motives are irrelevant if that's the belief you're operating under.

Those views seem inconsistent unless those people also disagree with compensated labor.

There’s already a type of degradation in a conventional job: someone having power over you that you can’t question, you have to degrade yourself by being agreeable to nonsense, you have to whore out your time and attention and energy, etc.

Spending 100 days in isolation is less degrading to me than all the things people take for granted at even their cushy software job, they’re just used to it.

How many of you are forced to sit in on absolutely banal Zoom meetings yet grandstanding about what someone else wants to do for $500k?

Post reply on HN