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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

#41

Post by unglaublich »

dustedcodes wrote: post #28
zemvpferreira wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a content creator Mr Beast only acts as a conduit for what we, the audience, are willing to pay for. It's not he who is the monster but us.

But we are not paying for it. He just gets the views and Google (YouTube) are those who think it is ok to pay for this content. People will always consume content about some crazy shit if it is made for free, but would we actually have to pay for it then it would show that most kids who watch MrBeast content today couldn’t actually care less about it. Let’s look at it from another angle to bring my point home. If a p…

No, Google doesn't think it's okay. A company has no such emotions. The financial benefits just outweigh the financial downsides.

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

#42

Post by gambiting »

tpush wrote: post #37
zemvpferreira wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a content creator Mr Beast only acts as a conduit for what we, the audience, are willing to pay for. It's not he who is the monster but us.

Nonsense. Mr. Beast isn't an unthinking tool, but an intelligent human being. Exploiting people for money is unethical no matter how much 'the audience' wants to see it.

I mean, so is something like Who Wants To Be a Millionare[0] exploitative as well? The whole idea is that people voluntarily sign up, to be "tortured" with difficult questions, for a chance to win some money. Of course the TV producers make money on the show, by broadcasting the whole thing for the audience's amusement. I'm just curious where you think the line lies between this and what Mr Beast is doing?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wants_to_Be_a_Millionaire%...

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

#43

Post by lawrenceyan »

Is this the algorithm or just late-stage capitalism / pre-post scarcity economics?

I think situations like these will only become increasingly prevalent as time passes thanks to technological development decreasing the raw resource cost of goods and services. Because while we have a good mechanism for reliably increasing productivity and efficiency, no analogous mechanism exists for distribution. Thus profit / wealth inevitably concentrates and you end up with

> 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.

I have no idea how you actually come up with a reasonable solution for this since communism/socialism clearly failed. My hope is that there's enough trickle down from technological growth, that despite increasing wealth inequality, at least the baseline minimum will be high enough that even the poorest people will be able to have a decent standard of living.

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

#45

Post by lettergram »

> That’s the world we’re headed into. In the future, content is ruled by algorithmic desire, and those best suited to steer on the seas of the algorithm’s waves and whims.

What’s often misunderstood and unaccounted for is that this algorithm is a feed back loop. We are adapting to it as much as it’s adapting to us.

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

#47

Post by gjulianm »

dustedcodes wrote: post #30
gjulianm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm no fan of him, I think you might be too harsh. > is to imagine he’d given them the money up front and told them that to leave his enter-torture-ment they have to pay up a ransom matching the initial gift. People enter those challenges fully knowing how they're going to go. It's random, rules don't matter, you might get money you don't expect or not get money you expected. The point at which they get the mon…

MrBeast is pushing the boundaries on the ethics and morals of how easily people with money can coerce poor people who are in dire need to perform extremely questionable things for the sake of his own amusement. Personally I don’t think this is good in any meaningful way. You could only rationalise such behaviour with the same arguments that other forms of exploitation are explained.

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 participating are subscribers to him, he's not just searching for poor people out of the street.

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

#48

Post by bambax »

> How does Mr. Beast have the money to create these videos? He’s the fifth most subscribed to YouTube channel in the world.

I had never heard of him or watched any of his videos. And now I have, and I'm afraid YT will recommend more. Not that I would ever watch one again except by accident, but still. I feel dirty.

Also, about this:

> t’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 (...) But there’s no standards, no compliance department telling Mr. Beast that this video maybe isn’t the best idea

Apparently the author has never heard of Tomoaki Hamatsu (Nasubi), a Japanese guy who was tricked into surviving off sweepstakes, fully naked, not for 100 days but for 15 months, while filmed and broadcasted 24/7 (without him even knowing it).

This stunt was organized by Nippon TV in 2000. It fascinated the whole country of Japan for as long as it ran, and some time after that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi

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

#49

Post by newsclues »

dustedcodes wrote: post #30
gjulianm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm no fan of him, I think you might be too harsh. > is to imagine he’d given them the money up front and told them that to leave his enter-torture-ment they have to pay up a ransom matching the initial gift. People enter those challenges fully knowing how they're going to go. It's random, rules don't matter, you might get money you don't expect or not get money you expected. The point at which they get the mon…

MrBeast is pushing the boundaries on the ethics and morals of how easily people with money can coerce poor people who are in dire need to perform extremely questionable things for the sake of his own amusement. Personally I don’t think this is good in any meaningful way. You could only rationalise such behaviour with the same arguments that other forms of exploitation are explained.

Is mrbeast worse than a McJob at fast food?

I’m currently doing tech support for mr cooks phone company and the abuse I’ve endured this week has been insane.

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

#50

Post by cube00 »

bambax wrote: post #48

> How does Mr. Beast have the money to create these videos? He’s the fifth most subscribed to YouTube channel in the world. I had never heard of him or watched any of his videos. And now I have, and I'm afraid YT will recommend more. Not that I would ever watch one again except by accident, but still. I feel dirty. Also, about this: > t’s terrifying that a man spent one hundred days in a small circle in an empty fiel…

But it's all for the viewers...he's only doing it for you.

> In interviews, he explains that many of his videos lose money, and he invests almost all of his earnings from You back into more videos.

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