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this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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Unpopular Opinion
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I only know a little bit about Mr. Beast and saw a couple of his early videos about giving away thousands of dollars in cash to homeless people. I haven't followed what he did after that except heard some controversy about him being involved in either hamburgers or chocolate (or both?).
However, if THIS is your metric...
...it begs the question, what are you doing to address systemic issue or assist people for their own benefit. If nothing, does that mean you are evil using your logic?
A fair point, but I think OP means that this guy already has the means to make a difference but chooses to dangle it in front of needy people and make them dance for it rather than tackle poverty problems from a different angle
Not sure what OP would do with this guy’s wealth, but I’m sure there isnt a magic wand Mr Beast could wave to solve poverty even if he wanted to
But then if he's not getting any returns from it, it's going to dry out.
Well the returns he gets are the views on his videos. People love to watch people fight to survive. So he pits them against each other in order to draw eyes (and therefore advertisers) while positioning himself as a “humanitarian” making “donations” out of the goodness of his heart. Obviously it’s working because his wealth is growing, not shrinking. That’s part of what I think makes it “evil” in OP’s eyes. If you’re profiting off of it, is it really charitable?
Edit: Oh wait, I can’t read. I see what you are saying. Disregard the above. I think you and I agree there. I don’t think it would be easy for him to just give all his money away for free because then it would be gone and people would still be poor
I’m just trying to play devil’s advocate
Hahah no yeah I do agree with you. I was just saying that if that's what OP is thinking then that's pretty silly.
I took the OP as saying: I think X is an evil, so I didn't do X. Therefore it is an evil, and so is the person doing X . MORAL PROJECTION
I think more than anything it's that he could use his platform to make people vote to change things. No matter what he does he can't fix things as an individual. He does have the influence to change voting habits though.
The Beast Burger thing is largely a brand protection thing and disputes with the company the handles the operations and logistics of it.
Beast Burger did help to keep restaurants open during the pandemic(expressed intent of the project) and the money made was either reinvested in marketing Beast Burger or donated to charities dealing with food insecurity.
He has literally given people back their sight and dug wells in Africa. The only way the people who are negative of him will be happy is if he gives away every dime he has, which means he won't be able to keep helping people. Can't please everybody, especially when you are making millions helping less than everybody.
Mr. Beast has harnessed the worst parts of modern capitalism to help the most left behind. Profiting while helping people is better than profiting off of hurting people, e.g. raising the cost of insulin.
Seems to me that in order to continue helping people, he needs to play within the confines of the rules of the system he is working in. Gotta make that money to give that money away. He doesn't appear to be doing it by allowing some 12-70 year old Amazon warehouse slave get heat stroke, or some other god awful situation. Apart from envy why are people complaining again?
People complain because he is making money off of helping people and he isn't as well off as the complaintants are.
They expect piety and philanthropy, which is a diametric opposition within the system. Mr. beast, by all accounts, lives in a nice but "modest" home with some nice, but attainable, cars.
I feel if you pay for 1,000 people to fucking see again for free, you deserve to drive an absolutely nice car, but his critics think he deserves to drive a 10 year-old Honda Civic with bald tires because he has made an invaluable difference in the lives of people who couldn't have a fraction of the quality of life that he makes possible.
His interviews give an insight into his mindset, and that paints a picture of genuine concern for the wellbeing of others. Yes he generates views, but he does something of value to the subject that is beyond what they would have had of he had not existed.
There is a huge hate campaign by fundamental Christians against Mr Beast. No1 is his name. No 2 he does charity without making it part of praising God.
OP isn't profitting off anybody's misfortune like Mr. Beast.
It's not a virtue to "not profit off of things". I don't care about Mr. Beast and a lot of charity is just whitewashing someone's legacy. But you can simply "not profit" by sitting in your underwear eating Cheetos. Does that help anyone?
Still, these dumb game shows are better than a lot of entertainment. Are you equally angry at "The Price is Right" or "Wheel of Fortune"? People go nuts about a basic ass car that they would normally shrug their shoulders at.
If you want to be angry at something, pick "Fear Factor". That made people do a lot of crazy shit. There's a reason it's cancelled.
I strongly disagree with this assertion. If you do X and make $100k off of it vs doing X and making $0 off of it, the latter is much better morally and for the universe.
How is it better? You've done X either way.
Also they're making money from their subscribers and likely creating a lot more awareness. Which is better for the "universe"
Ignore them. When people talk about "morals" and "the universe" they are signalling that they can't be convinced otherwise.
There's no point in trying to convince someone who doesn't want to change their mind. They may not even believe what they're saying. Just a desire to believe is enough to harden someone's mind against outside ideas.
Everyone has things they want to be true. This person probably wants to be "moral" and in touch with "the universe". So you can't convince them that profit isn't bad. They have decided that profit is never moral, so by arguing with that you argue that their deepest beliefs are false. You can't win.
Do you consider that an absolute or would other factors make that stated stance invalid to you?
Are you more likely to do x again if you got 100k for doing so vs nothing?
We both know the answer to that.
So does getting paid mean x gets done more often?
Does that mean it's better to be paid?
I think we're getting to the crux of the argumet. The concept of "net good".
OP has done nothing positive for these people that need help, but also nothing negative = net good of zero
If someone offers the people that need help (Gross Good) if they participate in an activity you don't agree (Gross bad) the outcome could very well be = net good being positive. Meaning there is more good than bad, so the end result is good being done.
From what I understand (again, I'm not a Mr. Beast follower), all involved are doing so voluntarily and meaning they believe the activities they're participating in are not negative enough and they are benefiting in the end, that sounds like a net good. Now if you're making an argument about "integrity" or "humiliation" I'd question whether we have a position to raise these when the folks receiving the needed help have rent paid or full stomachs.
In other words, its easy for us (who aren't giving any money to help) to criticism some that is, in some fashion, giving money to people that need it.
"net good" is about as morally sound as saying you can't criticize multi hundred millionaires (i.e. obscenely rich people) for having that much money and not spending 99%+ on helping people. I don't know enough about Mr beast to criticize him myself but I wanted to point out that your arguments are either not in good faith or rooted in logical fallacies and moral quandaries.
I'm not sure if you accidentally used a double negative. If it wasn't accidental, we agree with one another.
I believe pragmatically that "net good" (any amount spent to help those that need it) is better than "zero good" (no amount spent to help those that need it). Do you agree with that or disagree?
Chiming in, I don't agree in the general case that goodness and badness can be spent or converted, ie. saving two lives doesn't give you license to kill someone random because the net good is positive. But in this case since all his actions are related per video the help he gives to people outweighs their voluntary (although coerced via incentive) participation and any of its negative effects, if any.
Of course not. We're not talking about murder here, we're talking about three possible outcomes: donating money, not donating money, and generating money and donating some of that money.
Agreed.
the burger stuff isnt that big its just the idea that ghost kitchens don't have a standardized consistency between store to store because of chef and logistics. logistics is the bigget factor when it comes to food from a chain tasting the same from one branch to another, and historically speaking, the people best at logistics typically become the strongest.