There’s an impulse to contrarianism that leads people to conclude that it’s unerringly bad when someone does obviously good things that they don’t have to do. Yeah, it’s possible to go so far in using philanthropy (or worse, empty promises of future philanthropy) to whitewash evil acts that it turns out for the worse, but I don’t think Mr. Beast is in the same boat as, say, SBF.
If Mr. Beast has multiple ways to entertain and some of those involve philanthropy (relatively effective philanthropy at that, in this case), choosing those seems good, and he should be encouraged to do more of it. That said, it certainly shouldn’t discourage people from pointing out the problems that leave such obvious philanthropic opportunities unfulfilled in the first place and doing things (not just philanthropy!) to change that.
I’d argue (based on the video I posted above) that the whole thing is tainted by capitalism. Again, why not work for a society that doesn’t need this kind of charity, because we have a much more equitably distribution of what we all need to get by?
This isn’t about arguing about whether or not Mr. Beast (or even SBF, or whoever) are “evil” or not, but about the system in which they have thrived and others have been trodden on. I’m unsure why we tolerate the vast inequality that causes so many people to lack access to a basic good quality of life.
I think a lot of people are seeing this from the X-ianist teaching of not letting your left hand know what the right hand is doing, or the Pharisee demonstrably praying in public.
If you can’t keep your good deeds to yourself, it shows that there’s some sort of skin in the game for you.
I don’t know why some seem to have an aversion to asking why acts of great philanthropy are necessary in the first place? Why do we have a society that makes it a necessity, rather than having a society that just… takes care of everyone?
Who here is saying that? Everyone is in agreement that Mr. Beast did a very nice thing. If you’re talking about some other argument being had elsewhere about this situation, that’s a heresy strawman unlikely to be of interest to this thread.
That’s a silly nihilistic thing to say. Being a good person just ain’t that hard, as evidenced by the fact that most of us do it most of the time. Mr. Beast is a good guy, generally speaking (he does a lot of really nice things for people). Nobody here says otherwise. The discussion is about the structure of society and around private vs public charitable works.
If you disagree and you do want to have, say, Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk deciding who gets healthcare, I’d be interested in the reasons why. Otherwise you’re throwing darts at strawmen hoping something will stick in here.
I think he did a good thing with it, and is free from the evil whitewashing of the kind of philanthropy done by people like the Sacklers, to burnish their reputation despite profiting from blood money industries.
The criticism he probably deserves, and would probably acknowledge, is that this act might not end up as being actual philanthropy if his YT monetization ends up making more from this than he spent on it.
But some people, like Mr. Beast in this example, are insulated from that by their wealth. He could literally sound-proof his houses with $100 bills so as to not hear people calling him an asshole.
Which, as @VeronicaConnor pointed out, isn’t happening on the BBS.
That’s the thing he wouldn’t. It’s poverty exploitation pure and simple. He wouldn’t do it without the views, it’s how he makes his money/advertises his brand. He’s the genZ version of Extreme Homemakeover. Sobstory-manipulating corporate bullshit.
I wasn’t meaning to imply that you personally are upset, merely commenting to the general tone of the article that talks about all the heat he is taking.
Yes, medical debt is a terrible thing (and medical billing is filled with fraud and monopolistic practices) and, worse, they are deliberately making it harder for people to buy and forgive medical debt - which seems petty and cruel.
As for the structural problems in our society? Yes, let’s keep talking about them and hopefully fix some of them. I certainly feel that my generation failed those that followed, but it doesn’t mean that we should give up right?
Although, in this case, the publication of those good deeds drives views, the views bring in sponsors, and the sponsors are a large part of the money used for those good deeds.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy about a system that requires the commercialization of good deeds to make such things possible - that is a far bigger problem. Additionally, Mr. Beast certainly has also profited greatly (becoming the first YouTube billionaire IIRC), so this isn’t done purely out of altruism.
If he really cared, he could do a lot more but without publicizing what he does, he wouldn’t accomplish near what he does. It sort of strikes me as a double edged sword there…
Dude, no SEEMS about it… IT IS cruel. How the fuck do you think it feels to have a fucking debt collector call you while someone you love is on their death bed? That’s fucking cruelty right there. That’s capitalism.
So yeah, good for Mr. Beast… it doesn’t fix the everyday cruelties of the system for millions of human beings. And NOT questioning THAT is ignoring the real problem right in front of us.
