I don’t love that kind of philanthropy either. But it’s not the billionaires’ fault that that’s the system we live in. So when they do do charitable giving, I’m happy to give them the credit for it.
I see Mr Beast’s problem (in this respect) as twofold.
First, as you said, it was often a business expense. In fact on many occasions, it felt really gross and exploitative in the moment, like a sort of poverty porn.
And second, is the fact that even his more legitimate “charitable” raising feels very…Effective Altruism–coded. The idea that we can Technology our way into Saving Humanity. Like the Project Seas (or whatever it was called) where he organised a bunch of YouTubers into helping him raise a significant amount of money for a project that would supposedly use some fancy gadgets to clean up huge amounts of plastic waste in the ocean. Except that the company behind this had no interest in consulting with actual experts, and it turns out that their product simply does not work. It reminds me a little of that time Elon “pedo guy” Musk tried to insert himself into a cave rescue operation with a fancy submarine, and got butthurt when he was told “actually that won’t help us.” It also does nothing about reducing waste in the first place, which is by far the more important work.
I don’t love that kind of philanthropy either. But it’s not the billionaires’ fault that that’s the system we live in. So when they do do charitable giving, I’m happy to give them the credit for it.
I see Mr Beast’s problem (in this respect) as twofold.
First, as you said, it was often a business expense. In fact on many occasions, it felt really gross and exploitative in the moment, like a sort of poverty porn.
And second, is the fact that even his more legitimate “charitable” raising feels very…Effective Altruism–coded. The idea that we can Technology our way into Saving Humanity. Like the Project Seas (or whatever it was called) where he organised a bunch of YouTubers into helping him raise a significant amount of money for a project that would supposedly use some fancy gadgets to clean up huge amounts of plastic waste in the ocean. Except that the company behind this had no interest in consulting with actual experts, and it turns out that their product simply does not work. It reminds me a little of that time Elon “pedo guy” Musk tried to insert himself into a cave rescue operation with a fancy submarine, and got butthurt when he was told “actually that won’t help us.” It also does nothing about reducing waste in the first place, which is by far the more important work.