I agree there is something icky (discussed in the article) but it’s weird to say zero impact.

I'm glad MrBeast is the top YouTuber, it could've been anyone, but philanthropy and a spirit of giving took the #1 spot. Good on Gen Z.

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.

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.

Only joking, but no it is not "projection". It is definition. It goes something like "people do what they want to so if they donate something to others it is because they wanted to do it and therefore it was not selfless."

It's a pretty stupid and pointless definition though, probably sprung from someone's need to economicsify human nature. Even then you can easily get around it by defining selflessness to be the selfish need to give to others.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/imperfect-spirituali...

I see reasoning like this online all the time. A person donates $10 billion, and people say they it must have given them a warm fuzzy feeling, and that feeling is by definition worth $10 billion, because that's what they paid for it. As if the idea of selflessness or human goodness or anything existing outside the real of rational economic exchange is so challenging they find it more plausible that a warm feeling is worth $10 billion.

(Not that I think MrBeast is particularly an example of altruism - although it's probably an example of good)

Having behaviours that benefit your group rewarded and reinforced seems an obvious survival trait. It feels good, like reproduction. I wonder it's purely societal evolution or if there's a genetic component there.

Maybe it's hard to reconcile all this because calling something altruism is subjective, since we are not all knowing.

Like those act of kindness videos on YouTube with millions of views and earning the creators thousands of dollars.

Two different concepts that should be looked at separately.

The OCEAN model demonstrates that we are distributed into camps of "principally considering self first" and "principally considering others first". You take the most high Trait-Agreeable people, and they will all routinely sacrifice their own resources, position, opinion and wellbeing for others. This is fundamentally where maternalism is rooted psychologically too.

But to your point - I agree that if people have benefited from it, then it's still a good thing.

True. Which is why a lot of people recognize this and perform acts of charity anonymously.

I don't mean to say there is anything wrong with non-anonymous donations by the way.

Curb Your Enthusiasm did a whole episode on anonymous donations. Absolutely roasted the entire premise! The ego of anonymous donors is just as big, if not bigger! The anonymity is worth even more ego points!

Let's apply this reasoning to a different topic - if there is a puppy drowning in a river and somebody jumps in to save it, will you also tell them they are doing it to fulfill a selfish need?

I think it's perfect, as arguably, you could say that about the initial point as well (it's not altruistic because ego). When reduced this way, it doesn't really matter if ego is involved if the result actually makes an impact and betters someone else's life.

As for the puppy, try this: replace it with a black widow spider drowning in a toilet. How many people will save it now?

Anonymous charity is more often than not even more a road towards satisfying a selfish need. It elevates the sense that what you're doing is more just because it is anonymous so "surely I can't be doing it to make a show of it" except this perverse thinking often leads to elevating one's own desire to feel righteous above, y'know... Actual proof that the charity works and does any good. Doing it anonymously also means you avoid any criticism so you get to safeguard the selfish narrative in your head that you're a good person because nobody can point out any flaws in your charity acts.

I'd trust someone who is public about their altruism and opens it to criticism any day of the week more than someone who hides it. I trust people who are public about their charity and respond and change based on valid criticism the most.

What kind of feedback can you get when the donation is not anonymous that you can't otherwise? I really can't think of anything.

> Anonymous charity is more often than not even more a road towards satisfying a selfish need. It elevates the sense that what you're doing is more just because it is anonymous so "surely I can't be doing it to make a show of it" except this perverse thinking often leads to elevating one's own desire to feel righteous above, y'know... Actual proof that the charity works and does any good.

Yea, one can know if charity works without putting their name to it...

I don't even know where to begin... This is like saying "what kind of feedback can you get when the products you buy are not anonymous." When I buy a phone or some set of products it's usually public in the sense that I go to forums to talk about it, or my friends see the products I use, etc etc and people see what I use and I get feedback of the "hey, there is this product that might do this thing you care about better"

Likewise, if what you care about is x and you just go and donate to some charity, nobody can tell you something of the form "hey, there is this charity that might do this thing you care about better"

Just like with products, de-anonymizing also increases trust when you see a positive review. Same goes with charities. It opens up a more worthwhile place where discussions can be held.

> yea, one can know if charity works without putting their name to it...

Totally true. Except you still run the risk of fooling yourself more if you keep it to yourself. I don't trust myself and prefer to defer to those who research charities for a living. I talk with these people a lot, tell them what my values are, and then get charity recommendations.

I suppose a counter-argument you might make is you can still engage with people anonymously and learn what you need. That I also totally agree with.

I think you and I might be using the word "anonymous" differently.

What I'm arguing against is a kind of charity that is anonymous where the person doing this charity is an island and doesn't talk to or engage with anyone or anything about it out of principle. I think a lot of people think this is a good principle to hold. I am completely opposed to it. Is there even one good reason to do charity in complete secrecy? Even if you prefer to be anonymous (which is completely understandable), it is still better to engage with people to learn why a charity is a "good buy."

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.

I feel like you meant the opposite. . .

Sure he is extremely generous to his employees, but that would also fall under altruism...

I mean I googled "mr beast merch shop" and now I'm pretty sure it does, so dunno why you throw that claim without checking literally anything

Afaik, all of MrBeast's stuff is conducted with the rule that at least 1 person is going to win the jackpot.

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

I also don't understand the take that altruism/philanthropy has to be zero sum. i.e. true altruism means that I lose something and you gain something.

Maybe it is a hold over from religion and the idea of sacrifice being the ultimate good. The times I have had the most impact (helping people in need, teaching, starting my own NPO) it has been very much positive sum.

If he has zero impact, then everyone else here has negative impact. I certainly haven't cleaned up an entire beach.

Can someone give me some examples of philanthropy that is NOT predatory/extractive?

Richard Stallman and his work on free software?

I think what OP is saying is that at Mr Beast's income level, he can effectively create a lasting change that most of us can't. Instead he focuses on people individually, giving them nice gestures but nothing life-changing, and he continues to do this because his viewers demand these types of low-scale altruism. So effectively he's just an entertainer that earns his salary by doing small acts of kindness, nothing more.

It's like the old proverb in a way: "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. But teach him to fish, and you feed him for life". Mr Beast is just giving people fish for a day, but it doesn't help anyone after that one chance encounter with him.

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 they have a new chance at life. Even if 1% of them become mega successful that’s 1-20 people who will go on to impact more than 2000 people EACH.

And they can tell people MrBeast was the reason.

The bigger issue is why that healthcare is inaccessible to them in the first place? How do you or I go about solving this? How are you and I gonna bring this attention to Congress, and get their asses to work on that issue? Unless we both quit our careers to go into politics, it's not really possible for a random no-name person to make that change for the greater population. How about the other 10k people who can't see or hear? What about them?

If I had Mr Beast's financial or influence level, the next step I would be doing is wondering why those 1k or 2k people didn't get their healthcare and then trying to patch that. We all know how much of a scam our current system is. Once that's patched, everyone gets to eat for life, not just a single batch of 1k people in my lifetime.

Individual contributions are great and welcomed, but temporary. Societal change is where things get real. Cmon bro. It's why we have 40 hour work weeks, why women can vote and get college education, why lgbt community is accepted. And it's not like individual contributions and making society change are mutually exclusive... So what' stopping Mr Beast from going to that next step?

There are at least 1000 people in the US right now, probably far more, who have just as much money or influence as him.

What's stopping all of them from going to that next step?

The only structural changes I see are wealth disparities getting increasingly wider in society, with laws and tax cuts being favored for the ultra rich after each new presidential leadership. Who's putting the work into this? Not me, and probably not you. So who?

They for sure donate to make-a-wish foundations or whatever, which is great. But think of it this way: how does that help you or your kids when cost-prohibitive life-saving surgery is needed? Are you gonna quit your job and camp out near a rich person's house to get that lucky chance encounter in the hopes you'll get picked for next individual success?

It sounds like you know what should be done. Why don't you have Mr Beast financial or influence level? And why is that necessary to structurally improve healthcare?

> So what' stopping Mr Beast from going to that next step?

What's stopping you or anyone else?

> What's stopping you or anyone else?

Ad hominem fallacy. Life is not lucky for most people in the world. Don't really have to explain this if you look at how wealth disparity or how poverty trap works. You can wikipedia this yourself.

> why is that necessary to structurally improve healthcare?

Have you ever tried to intensely petition something? Or get an issue in front of your representative to take seriously? Do you know how much work and effort that takes? It's not simply doing an online poll. You literally have to go door to door every day to get signatures, to go out and talk to convince people to your cause, all the while fighting billionaire-funded counter groups and cops.

Everyone's gotta work to feed themselves and their families, get access to employer-only healthcare. People don't have time or money for intense political work. There's a reason why disinformation and interference in politics from Russia was such a big deal.. You have a state-level actor with state-level infinite money pouring into political groups creating societal havoc at the structural level. A regular joe can't do this kind of damage. Only people with serious money can.

The only other way things change structurally is through solidarity. Everyone protests in the streets. Cop reforms didn't come about because people asked nicely. People died and got mad.

So yea, unlike literally 99% of the people on earth who have to slave away at a job, if I had Mr Beast's money I would do the next step and fix issues permanently, because at that income level it's possible to give it a try. Instead, I see a few comments saying he spent a good chunk of that fortune on running a low quality burger chain lol.

So, why do you expect mister beast to be able to change things? He's doing more than me for sure.

> if I had Mr Beast's money I would do the next step and fix issues permanently,

Ehh. You probably wouldn't?

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.

I think "philanthropy" in the sense GP meant it specifically means donating money, so Richard Stallman's work wouldn't qualify.

There are no more controversial example than him.

Which one is better, donating $1 to 100,000 people or $100,000 to one person?

Similarly is donating $10,000 to cancer research better than $10,000 to one person? The cancer research may never have an impact, but it makes us "feel" good becasue it has the potential to change millions of lives.

Just an interesting one to me how we diminish the impact of helping one person when that one person could go on to be a Steve Jobs or the first person in the family to go to college. Literally life changing, where as donating for scale is a drop in the ocean and means almost nothing to a ton of people.

The guy took 1000 blind people and made them see again and in return he made more money to continue doing more good.

There's giving a man a fish and then there's giving people their vision back, far out.

Quick nitpick: if you think RMS haven't milked the "free software" cow enough, you're probably delusional. Its basically his lifestyle.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/altruism

By the first definition it requires “unselfish regard”. If MrBeast is pulling 54 million a year (along with lots of fame and clout) he’s not exactly qualifying for the first definition.

Definition 2 is the one I’m most familiar with from the animal kingdom, and it actually requires that the giver either gain nothing or lose something. So that may be where people are coming from who take exception to his behavior being described as “altruistic”. By definition, it is not.

Turns into "he gave up his last dollar for that person!" which is seen as a super altruistic thing to do, but now, not only does that person only have a dollar, you've taken yourself out of the game and can no longer do any more good in the world because you don't have any resources left.

One doesn't preclude the other. But if my benefit is a pre-requisite for the benefit of others, it changes the dynamic.

Would Mr. Beast continue these acts if he weren't also turning it into content? I'm sure everyone has an opinion, but I'm not particularly convinced.

I suppose what makes it hard to be skeptical here is there is real "good" being applied here, but the motivations behind them are important, too.

I give you 30 grand or cure your blindness or buy you a house and you participate in my video. It seems like a win win.

If the argument is that he is making more than they are making off that one video, again, that goes back to me having benefit less than you.

Maybe the problem is the framing people have of it being a charity? Even in that light, he creates content for people to consume for free, the content is driven by him giving things away, the people who pay him are businesses who also get a service provided by all of those people finding out about their product/service. It seems a lot less extractive than most business models.

Not exactly what I was saying. Let's say he stopped today. Or when he hit $25M in total wealth. Some figure where he could live a comfortable life while still contributing to these kinds of acts.

Would he still do it? Or is continued profit / brand building / etc a key component? Is this fundamentally a transaction?

I understand your point. It's a good one and well taken. Very eloquently put.

Those two things are definitely not always aligned and probably arent always in this case either.

Shocking question, but here's an answer: millions of non-billionaires who donate some money to [good] charities.

You never hear from them because they don't go around bragging about their donations.

If the former, it goes back to my point about good being about sacrifice and pain. I.e. me giving 10,000 is better than bezos giving 10,000.

If the latter, the charities they donate to are all talking very loudly about what they are doing. That is literally their job is to bring awareness to a cause and fundraise. They brag about their donations in that they tell you all the good that they have been able to accomplish.

I asked the question because I’m trying to understand the dissonance people feel with him that they don’t feel with what I just outlined.

I listened to his interview on the Joe Rogan show and was really impressed.

Mr. Beast built his channel by taking all profits from each video and plying it into the next video. Using this approach he was able to produce progressively larger and more expensive videos. He has demonstrated his frugal lifestyle, has publicly given away an incredible amount of money to good causes, and has stated his future goals for his businesses will be for charity. Everything about his actions strikes me as genuinely good, it just seems like the publicity is the best way to get more money to accomplish the charitable goals.

You're right that what he's doing does not conform to the definition of altruism specifically, but that doesn't mean what he's doing is not good.

How can you watch the video where he pays for the blindness surgery for all those people and say that that was anything other than an amazing win for all those nice people?

To me this seems like a semi-obvious minmaxing solution to making popular videos: make essentially zero profit, regardless of revenue. At some point you get so much revenue that you can't spend it all so the next logical step is to simply give it away as part of the video. And in this case it's a virtuous cycle - apparently giving away money generates more revenue so it just keeps going. But this doesn't strike me as being done out of any noble purpose - all he wants is YT view and charity is just a side-effect of that.

"How can you watch the video where he pays for the blindness surgery for all those people and say that that was anything other than an amazing win for all those nice people?"

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 counter-argument to this would be that structural change is somewhere between very hard and impossible, so just spend the money locally. A more cynical take is that lobbying for restructuring the US health care system doesn't generate YT revenue, so he's incentivized to fund the most clickbaity charity projects.

Do you think girl scouts are scumbags too?

Anyway, I don't think he's a scumbag. I think he's a nice guy and I'm sure I would be his friend if we took the same pottery course or whatever. I just don't think trying to "cram one more treat into America's already bloated snack hole"[1] is very 'cool'.

[1] Simpsons, season 8, episode 164, The Twisted World of Marge Simpson

Learning about the different types of social enterprise, it’s not uncommon for for profit ventures to incorporate aspects.

Still, some of this can come down to sour grapes that earning money can disproportionately and more sustainably be used for good than normal.

Uniqlo's core business is apparel. They buy in massive bulk. Mr Beast buys in maybe tens of thousands.

Or has the clothing market in the US hollowed out in the middle completely? That's what I'm worried about where I live (Poland, EU) - I feel like the middle tier, of normally priced, regular quality clothes for regular people, is all but gone now, leaving us with the choice between a) second-hand stores and bazaars selling counterfeits imported from the East, and b) lifestyle brands selling rags at ridiculous prices.

Ref: https://www.uniqlo.com/jp/ja/products/E458468-000/00?colorDi...

https://www.uniqlo.com/jp/ja/men/tops/sweatshirts-and-hoodie... 2990 yen and up for regular price.

That's still only about $20 and up, so right there is a factor of 2x between Japan and the US.

What good have you done for anyone but yourself in the last month? Do you even fulfill your own standards? Is any charity less than implementing your preferred political policies useless? It’s hard to even describe how childish and selfish your take is.

I thought the discussion here was about cataract surgery.

Australia has "free if you're poor and can wait" o/wise relatively cheap depending on your private health insurance.

https://www.finder.com.au/cataract-surgery-costs

Working vision correction to avoid glasses | contacts is purely elective in .au

https://www.finder.com.au/laser-eye-surgery

Seems misleading for that site to say it’s free. There’s small fees which you end up paying that Medicare doesn’t cover. And afaik you require a referral for public hospital which is not covered.

I'd wager that small referral fees in Australia amount to considerably less than surgery costs in countries with no socialised health care systems.

You’re kidding yourself if you think people on HN are contributing anything to better society.

Do you think he could actually get a law changed and help more people than he already did? Why wouldn't a "Mr Beast goes to Washington" style video get as many views as his direct support videos got?

The most popular YT video creator could probably start a fairly large lobbying effort although yes, the multi-trillion dollar US for-profit health insurance industry could probably do better.

"Why wouldn't a "Mr Beast goes to Washington" style video get as many views as his direct support videos got?"

It might, there's only one way to know.

Good lord, y'all are just never satisfied with charity work.

"Mr Beast literally cured blindness for a thousand people and gave them a bunch of money, no strings attached."

"Yeah but he did it for views!"

So what?! He markedly improved 1000 peoples' lives in the process. What have YOU done today?

Get over yourselves.

None of us are in his position to make as much change though. Are we not allowed to criticize someone that has far more power than us for not using it to its full potential?

Most young people are angry about the fact that their living and educational expenses are far higher than the older people responsible, and profiting from that increase. Refer also to the increase in retirement age and poorer pensions for younger generations.

AFAIK they do food donation drives regularly (or something similar) and probably supports other causes consistently. Those come from a place of passion, vision and commitment. Otherwise the YT videos are good execution to serve the audience and sponsors.

Tbh I haven't been tempted to watch his videos. Like many other commenters, I find something is off

Money given away doesn't have to have a "noble purpose", the act is good in itself. The people receiving it don't care about motive, I don't care about motive, and the only reason you care about motive is because you're threatened by another person doing good. There's no virtue inherent to giving anonymously. A piece of food or a warm house don't care about the intentions of the original owner of the money.

In fact the only reason I could see for someone pushing a narrative of "only some donations are good because of motive" would be to discourage donations, which I'm not sure why anyone would do unless they are utterly evil.

Just like many other celebrities that continue to make money of their lifestyle which isn’t something to applaud.

I believe Snoop Dog did his fair share of charity but I definitely don’t applaud his endeavors in pornography and drugs.

On the other hand I don’t have any idea if mr.Beast spends money on hookers.

But if I would choose which content should be more available on the internet I’d go with me.Beast not Snoop Dog.

Maimonides has a different viewpoint: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzedakah

Is it better to give privately, knowingly kneecapping your capacity to do so again in the future?

Pablo Escobar gave free money away. Would you take the money? He also built schools.

Motive matters. His intents were to build loyalty masked as charity. MrBeast is building (or has built) something else, masked as charity.

I hope MrBeast never stop giving away money and curing people, but there are some considerations to make here, and not just taking as granted the reasons the very same person doing charity is clearly trying to transmit.

If Mr. Beast steals money to donate it I'd be against it regardless of motive.

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. Beast not run a donation-focused youtube channel?

He's created quite an ingenious way to siphon money from advertisers to random people. It's not the most 100% effective way of creating change, but viewing it so negatively is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

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 system. All it takes is about half the politicians plus one, no?

I'm not an US voter and don't suffer its healthcare system, so maybe it is an immutable part of life and I can't grasp it - but I doubt it

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.

Does that have to be a thing? If he was growing vegetables for his neighbours or his community wouldn't we be going 'what a top bloke'?

-->

"This guy is a champion of generosity, a paragon of goodness. I admire him so much." --people like you, and other children

Yes the media overhypes his actions as some sort of altruism god, as they do with everything, but that doesn't take away that he came up with a model that feeds on helping people, and that alone deserves my respect.

There are so many people out there who deeply deserve your respect and yet this guy is the one with your attention - because vainglorious self-promotion is his mantra and his mission. Go read about any of the countless people out there making serious, meaningful contributions without pasting a photo of their face and bio links over everything they do. Oh, I guess it'll be a bit harder to find them. Easier to just keep watching Mr. Beast and pondering how much respect his brilliant business model deserves.

The alternative is advertisers spending their money on rap videos glorifying selling drugs to kids and committing felonies. Personally, because I don't see the world in black and white, I see Mr Beast as a massive upgrade from the previous status quo.

https://www.beastphilanthropy.org

Being a cynic isn’t cool, and it is not being objective - the good he does is staring you in the face and you can’t even see it

I have heard anthropologists tell anecdotes about Red Cross refusing to help a village just a couple of hours drive away from their outposts because there is no press coverage and they would rather spend their supplies on places where it'd get reported on, because the report brings in more donations. Emotionally I sympathize with the people that the speaker spent time with and resent Red Cross's decision, but pragmatically I can see that it make sense.

I've talked to nurses who volunteered at MSF say they passed by many villages that needed help on their way to their destination, a more well-known location that will bring more attention for their services. Lord knows they lamented over it, but the decision was made by the organization to ensure they get the maximum donation needed to help more people.

I have literally never watched a single Mr Beast videos, but going by what I'm seeing in articles like these, I fail to how what he's doing is any worse than most charities.

It’s not a competition; OPs view is not yours.

Emotional responses to content are subjective. It’s never been, never will be, that all humans are of a normalized opinion on anything, I’m not sure what the point of your take on OPs take is?

Must we role-play feeling like Shiny Happy People about everything? Why must everything be framed in toxic positivity?

I wonder many of the critics in this thread have seen him like this. I've also seen a few videos where he's talking about his channel and he certainly has me convinced he's not in it for his own benefit.

But it's not altruism, it's philanthropy. It's more about the performance than the act itself. Some of his videos literally reycle game show ideas ("do X contrived thing successfully and you get $Y money"). His antics help people and that's a good thing. But he's also making them jump through hoops (not literally AFAIK, though I wouldn't be surprised) and perform gratitude for his audience. Things can be good and bad at the same time.

Consider the American trope of "feel good" news reports about, say, an elementary school kid doing a successful fundraiser to pay off his classmate's school lunch debt. Yes, it's amazing that an elementary school student did that but it's also horrifying that this means school lunch debt is just a thing society has come to accept as normal and that society is so dysfunctional a literal child had to take the initiative instead of just getting to be a child.

I think Mr Beast is one of the better people when it comes to using their ridiculous wealth and social capital for good, but it's horrifying that people have to perform misery for an online audience to get relatively cheap medical treatments and frankly it's horrifying that a single person can have access to and control over such an amount of wealth that they can perform this kind of stunts on the regular while at the same time so many people are so desperately poor that their lives can be changed by being gifted mere crumbs in comparison. Mr Beast may be a relatively good person but that he (i.e. his channel/brand) can exist at all should be deeply concerning.

That's what every sensible businessman does in the early years of a new venture. It's only a stark contrast to the avera social media personality who takes out as much as they can early on to fund car leases, rent for fancy homes and designer brand clothes.

It is wonderful that people can see, but how much money you have should have no bearing on whether you stay blind or not.

These people are victims of a system and charity is just painting over the cracks.

Perhaps he could devote his energy to start the change.

Charity (and alms) is what people did back in the day. Some societies moved on.

[1] Better said: I'm not against charitable acts. I'm against charity as a replacement for an humane and fair society. Sometimes it feels like having a water station next to workers being being whipped to build the pyramids. Perhaps stop the whipping?

Pretty much all of this is typical “rich philanthropist” stuff, just dialled down to appeal to a demographic cohort of 20-35 year olds.

It’s incredibly easy to be altruistic when literally every financial and social incentive says you should. I think people are uncomfortable with this because he hasn’t sacrificed anything. His financial incentives just line up with “doing good things”. When they no longer align it still remains to be seen whether he will act the same.

So he donates mainly to please God, not to help others.

Don't overthink it too much, yo.

Like, what's your goal here? Nobody is allowed to help anyone unless they do it wearing a hairshirt and flagellate themselves afterwards? Are you trying to have fewer people get helped?

Of all the things in the world to gatekeep, you pick helping people?

There is another that says to earn a honest living through hard work.

Dictionary definitions are rarely complete and independent of the model Christian lens (and sometimes bias) that writes them. It can make things harder.

Instead of having a system able to detect it's pain points and be able to self-heal, our current system "solves" issues by borrowing/stealing from the future: from printing money with the velocity of an unleashed spam bot to using finite resources (wood and steel, but also energy, time, attention, expertise) to build ridiculous boats for a few billionaires.

Also, we have a better word than "large-scale/impactful philanthropy": the state. And yes, there has been and there is no state in the world, beyond all the branding and the flags of the nation-states, mainly because we are unable to solve the tragedy of the commons [2], because perhaps in order to solve it we need to develop a natura naturans [3]: how does one build a god? Because, effectively, that's what a system able to care about everyone and everything becomes.

[1] https://jacobin.com/2021/10/philanthropy-is-a-scam

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

[3] <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/#:~:text=This%20i...>

From the article: > The end product was an eight-minute video called “1,000 Blind People See for the First Time.”

This is a huge quality of life improvement for 1000 people directly, and imagine the secondary effects - they qualify for jobs which they didn't, they can contribute money to their families, their families are able to use the money to fund education / savings for future generations, etc.

Leaving aside the altruism, he is a master of his craft. He understands the Youtube algorithm, his viewership, and how to grow his brand.

I hope you find some optimism in your life.

Here we have some dude who is earning money by helping people - yet for some reason this is one of the biggest sins he can do in eyes of a lot of people. Why? Just because he can't help everyone?

This is so weird take on the matter. What are you doing to help people? Are you taking credit for that work? And if not would you not be able to help more people if you had some notoriety?

There are things that you can criticize MrBeast on - like the MrBest Burger internet kitchens - but him making money off of helping people is not one of them.

Btw he is not "earning money by helping people", he is "helping" people to earn money.

Monsters, Inc. comes to mind! In that movie they are scaring children, bottling their screams as energy and selling it as a commodity. The happy ending is our protagonists stumbling upon the fact that laughter is a much better source of energy than screams, and so the staff of monsters become slapstick comedians for children everywhere.

YouTube managed to become the boring-dystopia middle-ground where they make money off both.

Instead of getting hung up on what is or isn't altruism, the other point of view here is that he leaves a trail of people that are objectively better off having encountered him. That's advertising money that is spent on worthy causes. Yes, it's self serving. But that money also serves the people he helps. It's an interesting dynamic. Ceasing to do what he does would actually be bad for the people that are on the receiving end of this. So, why should he?

He's found a way to funnel of some of the stupid money slushing around on the social media platforms. There are billions of it. And he's managing to do something more interesting with it than just squirreling it away. Compare that with the average influencer, viral marketing expert, troll farm or other sources of clickbait that are thriving on these platforms. At least this goes somewhere vaguely useful. Good for him and whoever is on the receiving end. And if he pockets some of that, how much worse is that than all the other nonsense on those platforms where most of the publishers just pocket 100% the revenue? I'm not judging that either.

If you are going to watch stuff on Tik Tok, Youtube, or whatever, you might as well watch his. Best case some random people benefit from this, worst case you watch some silly nonsense and are mildly entertained by that. Either way you feel good and nobody is getting hurt. I don't watch this stuff myself but that's just because I have other things to watch that I find more interesting.

Instead of getting hung up on what is or isn't altruism...

It's interesting how people gets stuck in that point. They want him to suffer in order to qualify for saint status. Otherwise, doing good is meaningless. On the contrary, I find very nice his happy, positive, laid back persona.

I wonder what people criticizing him thinks of well-known NGOs.

Until BeastHQ PR agency decides that it needs to plant stories in major news publications to counter the original narative and rebrand away from hacking: mastering all aspects of YouTube, every detail that attracts views to full fledged saint.

> thinks of well-known NGOs.

I have many uncharitable words for the vast majority of charities, workers, donors and charity galas - the problem with both cases is when people stop being honest and go from admitting the reality to claiming they are a saint.

Let me insist in watching the interviews instead of reading about him. The guy is very straightforward about what he does, why and how.

the problem with both cases is when people stop being honest and go from admitting the reality to claiming they are a saint.

So you judge people for what they will do?

Anyway, the charities, from the start, claim that they're saving the world and keep claiming that when corruption cases arises.

But I don't see how his impact is absolutely ZERO when he's at least given 1000 people his vision back.

There's pranking people for money online, then there is giving people life altering treatments for free.

Imagine having a life where you make money helping people and bringing joy to other people's lives. The only caveat is that those people are featured on a video... that they agree to.

Is that really altruism ? It sounds more like a business deal to me.

Of course there is an element of business, otherwise he wouldn't be able to make these videos in the first place if people didn't agree to be filmed. The difference here is that being on camera is a small price to pay than the price of bringing your own eyesight back, something these people cannot afford.

The ability to do these treatments doesn't come out of thin air.

I know i wouldn't, i would just feel like shit. Because it is shity.

I'd rather have him keep doing silly video and dedicate 10% of his revenues to non-profit, period, no filming, totally anonymously.

How is this any different to people being filmed on a game show where they can win millions of dollars if they answer questions correctly or complete challenges in a specific time on national television. Those shows generate revenue by people watching them in the hope that people win against all odds or revel in the fact that they missed out on national television.

The difference here, is that this guy is doing it on Youtube and has a much larger impact on individuals lives.

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.

I think we can both agree that if he gives away more than he makes in ad revenue, he won't be able to keep doing that for long. And hopefully we both agree that if he's able to make back roughly equal to what he gives away, there's no problem there either? At that point he's basically a non-profit. It's only really an issue if he's giving away 1 million and pocketing 10 million, right?

Or is that not quite it either? Because what if he's able to invest that 10m such that the next video gives away 5m and pockets 50m?

My question is, where is the line between being a force for good vs bad, given that his philanthropic potential can grow along with his profits, and he seems to have a track record of doing so? Is it when he starts making 100m but is still only giving away 5m? I have no idea what the actual numbers are, maybe he's already well beyond that point, and now he's just investing his profits into PR to make himself look like a good guy .

I agree with what you typed there, even though based on the rest of the context, it's probably not what you meant to type.