Woman ‘dehumanised’ by viral TikTok filmed without her consent
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I think things really took off with the people who were making "gold-digger" videos, where a guy tries to talk to a girl and she rejects him, only to come back when he walks up to a (most likely rented) exotic car. In many of these cases, all of the people involved in the video are not authentic, but there's never disclaimer that the video is staged or a skit. Even car accidents, sad stories of addiction and mental illness, and stunts can all be staged to gain views as well.
I'm skeptical of everything I see online, been that way for a long time... Worst part is there is no real way to avoid that type of content, and that phony content often gets plastered across all the sites, and reposted for years too come, and even written about when it's exposed as fake, so there's no real way to avoid it, and there's no incentive for people to stop doing it because of the (negative) popularity it breeds for the people and companies that sponsor and create it.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90287323/people-are-falling-off-...
I don't think the GP was referring to social Darwinism, just plain old Darwinism, of the "Darwin Award" variety.
It's not related to the science of evolution, it's using the principles of natural selection for social commentary.
Yes, it is, at least to the extent that intelligence and common sense are selected for, and their opposites are selected against, in our current selective environment.
They should definitely be warned, and perhaps be put into therapy with a professional, but self harm isn't social darwinism. It's just a mental health issue.
I agree that self-harm isn't social Darwinism. People sharing amusing stories of self-harm and chuckling about "cleaning the gene pool" absolutely is.
Natural selection is not the right tool to downplay and excuse harm to others, and has nothing to do with the scientific theory of evolution.
Not everyone is cut out to be an entertainer, influencer, or celebrity. The problem in our current world is that social platforms are encouraging everyone to quit their job to be those types of entertainers (while not paying the very same people), and it's not a realistic model for success, and quite possibly very harmful to the world's future and to mental health.
It has happened in the past, Evel Knievel was one of the most popular incidents of someone sacrificing themselves to entertain others well prior to the "like and follow" era.
"God, make me famous. If you can't, just make it painless"
Wow.
gaining influence with videos like these (widespread, "easy content") will probably earn you some advertisement deals
They're unionizing Starbucks, but it might be wiser/better to unionize social media creators before it's too late.
A friend of a friend is an influencer doing 50K a month. He has a network of influencers he knows. It is overwhelmingly referral schemes for apps or pumping shitcoins.
I hate when a real car accident is attributed to a drunk driver when it was not. There are plenty of wrecked cars from actual drunk driving, you don't need to lie to get an example. Some people think their intentions justify their actions, even when their actions can accurately be described as "lie" or "cheat" or "for profit" or some other dishonest thing. This may be effective in many cases, but in others it discredits your efforts and perhaps even your cause.
Random acts of kindness DO happen, but are usually not captured on video.
Indeed. In fact, when the act is intentionally captured on video by its performer, not only is it already very debatable that it is an act of "kindness"... but it is also obviously NOT "random"!
(For the colloquial meaning of "random" of course)
Before I left, plans changed, so now I was in the mall parking lot, and had (to me) useless flowers. In the parking lot, I saw an older woman sitting in her car.
I walked up to her, proclaimed "surprise, flowers!", which she took, and I walked away.
It is sad to think that these days, it almost makes more sense to just throw them away, instead of giving a bit of unexpected joy to someone.
(the woman seemed surprised, and happy)
Or give it, for fear of a negative response... the well is being poisoned.
Also giving someone flowers is quite a cheap kindness. Help somebody in need out. Or just go clean the streets. No good content clickbait video to be made of you picking up the trash ?
That phrase, to 'remove yourself from the equation' applies here too. That leads to a better 'test' and metric.
The real definition of compassion.
I was about to propose to my girlfriend and was setting up my DSLR on a tripod to take photos via IR remote (she thought we were just going to take photos of us at sunset).
Then a guy came walking by and offered to take the photos for us. I demurred, but he said he had the exact same camera and knew how to use it. So I quietly told him what was about to go down, and he took a bunch of great photos of our engagement.
For at least a year after, my wife didn't believe that he wasn't a plant!
Only if you're going into the whole "every act is selfish" kind of thing.
> but it is also obviously NOT "random"! (For the colloquial meaning of "random" of course)
Why not? It only takes a few seconds to start filming.
If you mean having a camera person, that starts to get into the weeds, but it depends on how much planning there was and how it was done.
There are selfless acts of kindness, but this isn't one of them. There's no conflict there. He did it to make a video he could monetize on TikTok. It's his job. It's a really simple distinction.
> If you mean having a camera person, that starts to get into the weeds, but it depends on how much planning there was and how it was done.
If he went to that mall and bought flowers and picked a sympathetic-looking subject, with the intention of filming a video of himself doing it to upload to TikTok, it's not random. It's premeditated. I don't mean that in the legal sense, though it probably applies. I mean he thought about it in advance, so it's not "random".
Okay but that goes way beyond the general-case statement I was responding to.
--Jesus
We don't do social media, we don't even tell anybody, except for this one time, right now to support your point, so I think it's appropriate in this case.
We've told each other because we talk about our finances and it's reasonably to discuss why the grocery bill was double triple, etc what it would have been for what was brought home.
But I think it's a good thing to do if you "hit" the correct "target".
It's feels good to genuinely do something nice for another person and I wouldn't want to take that from them. It's also nice just knowing that not everyone in your community is only looking out for themselves. Might as well take the opportunity to do something for someone else
I've wanted to pay sometimes for people - but didn't have the courage... shame.
I tend to just try help out those who are having trouble paying, regardless who they are, on the condition that if we're in a supermarket, their shop is a grocery shop on the whole; if they're buying £70 worth of spirits and nothing else, I'm probably not going to offer.
I work in central London, so sometimes a tourist will come into my local cash-only coffee shop just in front of me and not have cash, so I'll just offer to buy their coffees or whatever, though there are no cash-only coffee shops now since returning to the office after the pandemic, so it doesn't happen as often.
You might also just pass 5 to 10 x 20 USD cash (or local equivalent) to the cashier and have that applied to the next person in line, and let them work out how to split any leftovers on their own.
I've never done either of those things myself, but I did feel horrid enough about our government during an extended shutdown over budget stuff to directly support the food bank with some 'staples' from Costco as well as a just outright cash donation back when that BS happened last.
Directly supporting the food bank is also an option that can help the even more needy.
If they're struggling, card declined etc, they're probably already frustrated, they might turn to me to apologise, that's my cue; I'll just say, "hey, can I get that for you?“. I remember the first time, a guy about my age just buying food, his card was declined, he had a little bit of cash so the cashier was having him figure out what to leave behind so he had enough to cover it. I just asked if I could get it all for him and he just asked, "why?", looking puzzled, I just said "why not?", and something along the lines of "you can pass on the favour one day", he accepted.
Other times its that the place doesn't take cards and they need to get cash, I'll just say, they can add it to my bill and I'll get it, if they don't mind.
Sometimes people decline, but usually I'm pretty good at judging when people would appreciate it so it's rarely awkward.
Which I have done on a couple occasions, including the note, so they understood my motivation. I am hoping that when they get old, they'll pass it on.
With staged content the only victim is the duped audience who can always just not watch TikTok.
If you want to do a skit, make a skit.
These apps don't allow for people to choose the content they see. Even the front page of CNN.Com is regularly now citing TikTok clips that went "viral". In the next few years there will be no way to avoid this staged and shilled content anywhere. Especially as monopoly platforms begin to collaborate with each other to create marketing campaigns.
Suggestive/manipulative marketing has a stranglehold on the Internet without most people knowing. Things displayed on site front pages are there for a reason, and it's not usually because it naturally went viral, it's there because it makes companies a lot of money.... The real content, made by authentic people is buried by algorithms and under a sea of staged and copycat content. (Just my opinion though)
Not even close. There are plenty of places on the Internet that are not infected with this trash. (This site is one of them: nobody has to wade through videos and ads just to post here.) It is unfortunate that so-called "mainstream news" sites like CNN are not among them, but that's CNN's problem.
News sources previously reporting on and praising crypto companies and coins that have now been exposed as scams (now gone bankrupt) is a troubling sign that even journalism is relying on likes for reputation more than properly checking sources.
Many influencers pushed crypto heavily in the past years, leading to huge money losses for people who follow them. There has still never been proper public account for how this social media content cycle mentally manipulates people regularly.
I already gave you one: this very site.
> a troubling sign that even journalism is relying on likes for reputation more than properly checking sources.
So-called journalism has been in that mode for decades, if not centuries. If anything, the Internet makes it harder for them to keep it up, because there are so many more ways for their practices to actually be exposed so people can see them. That might make it seem like journalists do more of that kind of thing than they used to, but it doesn't; it just means that they get caught at it a lot more than they used to.
> There has still never been proper public account for how this social media content cycle mentally manipulates people regularly.
Social media can only mentally manipulate you if you're naive enough to (a) use it, and (b) believe what you see on it. No amount of "public account" is going to fix that problem.
Hacker News is almost entirely influencer marketing, and has been from the very beginning. The whole point is to push Y Combinator the angel investment company.
Really? That's what this discussion is? Or, for that matter, every discussion I have participated in in the 10 years or so I have been posting on HN? Are we both posting on the same site?
I get that the existence of HN gives publicity to YC, and that every so often pg or sama posts a new essay and those always make it to the front page. But to call the site itself "almost entirely influencer marketing" seems to me to be, to say the least, highly inaccurate.
It doesn't work
I forgo something when I opt out, but I absolutely am in control of that choice whereas a bullied child is not.
Fake cooking videos en masse. I think it's time to give people the option of opting out of filming, carry a small rfid/chip or s-t and then you can't be filmed - built in AI blur :)
This is where working in the entertainment industry has jaded me a bit. By default, I assume that if it captured on camera, it has been planned/staged/etc for the explicit purpose of being shown to people. With social media, I think it has been turned up to an 11 as everyone is trying to become social media famous. It takes a bit of convincing for me to believe that something is truly real at this point.
Due to the "inside baseball" knowledge of how fake everything is on film/TV, I find it sad that so so many people fall for thinking something is real and actually needs this kind of disclaimer.
"To the Capital building...this should be fun!!" Hahaha....
(Technically your initial claim is almost tautological, but I assume you meant "shown for purposes other to genuinely convey information about the real world")
There's a whole industry of this shit.
Because it is really, really hard to be empathetic with the homeless folks here, based on how they behave.
Maybe you shouldn't put these people in the same category. Not everyone living in the street is the same. Some are just poor. Some need medical and/or psychiatrical help. Some may be on the street by choice (see: Hobos (meant in the 'going from town to town, often by freight train or hitchhiking' sense)).
A couple of weeks ago I had to avoid an altercation with a woman who talking to herself on the subway, she didn't like the way I "looked" at her as I was doing my best to mind my own business. She starts mad-dogging me and then darts off the train.
Every so often a transient blocks the stoplight at a large, 6-lane intersection near my house, because he decided to ignore the crossing signal, and sometimes even the crosswalks.
My young sister doesn't feel safe walking home on certain routes as there are groups of disheveled men hanging out doing nothing in particular. I've counted over a dozen of them, blocking the sidewalk and sometimes a lane or two on the street.
The strip mall near my house has had to fence off certain areas open spaces because they had a habit of hosting impromptu bike chop shops.
A woman who owns a local tasting room at said strip-mall has told me multiple stories of shenanigans with the local transients, as they like to get into trouble in their outdoor bathrooms, and her business has the closest key.
Last week a man was sucker-punched because he asked a transient, who was sleeping in his car, to leave. (The man who got punched needed to drive to work.)
Last year a woman was stabbed with a needle by a transient while waiting in line at a drive-thru.
My city's local subreddits are rife with complaints and specific altercations. Most city parks are or have homeless encampments, and you can find them pretty much anywhere that there is unattended open space. My city even opened a safe zone for unhoused to camp, with police supervision and outreach resources available, and had to shut it down due to lack of use.
City police generally do nothing; they are underfunded, understaffed, and still butthurt from the BLM protests and imposed COVID policies. Some of the videos that have been posted online have been downright childish.
I know that not everybody is the same, and there are a handful of locals that I see repeatedly and know to be decent folk, but it is extremely difficult to be charitable with a narrative like this. And I am aware of other cities around here that have it much worse.
There are areas of town that I used to enjoy walking through, but now they smell of a shit and piss. People are not quite as destitute as some of the South American cities I've walked around, but it feels like we are getting closer to that.
If the homeless, as a group, would control/behave themselves people might have a different attitude. But they don't, and it takes a long time to recognize whether a specific individual is worth helping or not.
[1] https://www.drugs.com/sfx/methamphetamine-side-effects.html
This isn't Minnesota or New York City. Our winters are mild; you don't need meth to stay warm at night, and the transients here tend to have more than enough clothing to stay warm when it gets into the low 50s/40s.
In fact this mild weather is probably why we have so many of them literally dumped on us. (Dumped, as in, given a one-way ticket to a sunny, seaside city of their choice)
Community policing programs work, just look at the success that Urban Alchemy has had in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The community is more than capable of policing itself, but it doesn't.
With respect, do you believe people choose to become addicts?
I'm not talking about opoids which were sold to folks as non-habit-forming for a long time. Or other cases of addiction without consent. But I don't think that is the case here, for the majority of people.
But for that, you'd need a functioning healthcare system.
You can then argue that it's caused by mental illness and we should be empathetic, but I've talked to multiple people who actually worked in psych wards, my mother being one of them. They know they need to take care of them and be empathetic, but boy don't they all have stories to tell that has caused them to dehumanize them to some extent, or suffer burnout as the alternative.
Don't just empathize with the mentally ill, but also the others you so easily burden with doing the actual work.
The person I replied to posted a laundry list of complaints about when those damn homeless jerks made them uncomfortable after saying they are so hard to empathize with. It's so whiny and disconnected from the actual hardships that caused these people to behave this way. Why can't they just be clean and polite and normal?
I've seen too many literal dicks just getting off the BART.
But I don't even mean those or have that much of an issue with them (there aren't many of those here.)
What I mainly had in mind is a phenomenon that may not be very common outside my country (idk). I live in a country with social healthcare and government welfare for those who have no work. The people who are running from person to person in the streets begging for money aren't really needy. They most likely already collect welfare from the government, and they additionally beg as they don't want to work, and the welfare office can't deduct that money from what they get, since it isn't documented.
These are healthy looking young guys in their mid-20s or so, who are completely able-bodied, well dressed, and they're begging as if it is their fulltime job. It's apparently pretty lucrative, else there wouldn't so many of them be doing it.
They've recently become a lot more brazen in their tactics and will verbally assault and sometimes even follow you around for not giving them anything. They ask for money for food as they claim to be hungry, but when you offer to buy them some food they get angry with you as well.
These people aren't needy, and there are so many of them now that I've grown so tired of it that I first started completely avoiding downtown, and ultimately also moved somewhere else (there were other reasons of course.)
I don't have any problem helping someone who's really down on their luck (and you can usually see it pretty easily), but I'd never give money, always offer to buy them food instead. I also point them towards various places they can go to get food/shelter/help.
I'm angry at those who abuse the goodwill of people because they've turned that city I loved so much into a place where everybody always tries to quickly get-in-and-out, never look someone into their eyes, because that might prompt them to try to manipulate you into giving them money, and just generally turned downtown into a place where everyone constantly wants to rush through and avoid any contact with others.
I'm not just blaming those beggars, I also blame the people who give them money. People need to stop falling for this, it turns cities into shit.
Anyways, enough ranting for tonight...
Luckily my girlfriend told the guy to put his roses some place I may not mention here.
Your best policy in public in a major city is to internalize Tony Stark's strong aversion to being handed things.
And you can be kind to people that aren't in dire straights or in need.
There seems to be little interest in the actual person given the flowers other than as a prop.
Choices were may, all of them to exploit that women directly or indirectly by piling onto the hype.
> Maree gave her consent to publish the video with this article
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-14/tiktok-video-maree-me...
Are concerns themselves normally able to talk?
It's like attempting to look at the negative space between news aggregator headlines and asking, "what am I not going to read here, no matter how much I read?"
Maybe the act of making something visible in the context of social viewing will become culturally inexcusable in more circles. It would be the ability of people to get offended at being shared by someone else, which is not perceived as a big deal yet, and a taboo developing that forces people to reconsider at every potential share if they will offend someone. If that doesn't happen, then this will continue for some time. It's a cultural problem.
It's sad that selective ignorance feels like a necessary virtue at times when being curious about the world is commonly taught. In effect, "the world" is what we're tempted to be interested in by nature and curiosity is a highly exploitable resource.
I wonder who finds this type of content genuinely appealing?
The only people I've ever heard say anything about this kind of content are radio DJs who are talking about the wholesome stuff they've posted to their employer's twitter and why you should definitely follow them.
It’s everyone - people fall for whatever the path of least resistance to the next dopamine hit is.
And even if not true, you’re discounted bored housewives, the elderly, etc.
"Here, just hold this" running off
Actually, I would like it even less because I hate the idea of cutting flowers out to put on a bouquet. They'll just die way faster for nothing. I think it's just not a good thing to give someone
Many kinds of flower plants last longer and produce many more flowers if the flowers are cut away from the main plant.
I have flower plants in my garden that I intentionally and frequently cut blooms from because it keeps the main plant healthier and blooming longer.
Thank god there were no cellphones during my high school goth phase.
I'm dubious this happens enough for you to even have an opinion about it. What sorts of gifts are random strangers giving you?
https://www.scam-detector.com/article/cd-bullies-in-new-york
It does depend on the place, situation, and general vibe you get from the person, though. Aside from awkward experiences, I think it's just weird and rude to hand someone something under the guise of asking them to hold it for you and run away, then try to claim it as some sort of act of kindness.
One act of genuine kindness from a total stranger that still stands out to me the most years later did not involve them giving me anything.
Sure, but I'm the kind of person who picks up litter anyway.
That's the thing for me. If you are truly doing a "random act of kindness", then you are not planning it, you are not filming it, and you are not putting it online. You are also being respectful: some people would be put off or offended for accepting certain kinds of help, so you probably should ask for consent.
If you're filming it, and intend to post it somewhere, then you have some sort of ulterior motive to doing it. And I don't really find credible people who claim to be posting them in order to "spread awareness" or inspire other people to do these sorts of things.
I wonder how much advertising revenue this sort of thing generates for someone with this guy's viewership...
Matthew 6:3-4
The issue here is how it plays out the person gifted isn’t more than a prop.
Notice the wording "ENDS"
That would modify your statement as follows :
Something can be kind and filmed (provided.. ENDS).
OR restating your sentence:
"Something can be kind and filmed provided filming was not the goal of the kindness, and in fact filming was entirely unintended and unexpected"
Prearranging to film giving you a million dollars, is very different from just showing up an putting camera's in your face with out your foreknowledge or consent
OP commingled morals and kindness when his intent (now obvious to me after rereading) was to explicitly discuss morality of the situation.
You are exploring the morality of performing an action that violates moral norms (in this case, expectation of privacy)
We were exploring whether it is possible to be kind from an act if the end goal is obtain valuable exchange, off the act
Consequentialists believe all that matters is the "ends". So even if I filmed something with the aim of patting myself on the back but it made people feel good, it's moral because the outcome was positive.
Others believe all that matters is intent. A good Samaritan may act recklessly and end up maiming somebody, but they acted morally because they had positive intent to offer aid.
(Of course, there's many other takes but those seem to be the one's germane to this part of the discussion).
Both outcome and intent matter, and the tricky question is how to balance the two.
I don’t have a strong philosophical argument to justify the balance I aim to strike in daily life, but it definitely feels like both consequentialism and deontology fall down when left totally to their own devices.
I've heard people smarter than me advocate contractualism as a way of finding balance between the two.
That's not to mention that the two (action to create a viral video and the intent to truly act out of kindness) don't have to be mutually exclusive. For example, if I did the same to create a viral video with the intent to shape social norms, that would probably be a more moral decision than to create a viral video for monetary gain.
Our planet has seen its fair share of saviors, liberators, purifiers, improvers of all sorts. And they've left us with a culture rich in clichés and aphorisms that teach us that although you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs and the ends will eventually justify the means, the roads to hell remain paved with good intentions.
On the flip side, consequentialism can justify all sorts of actions that are objectionable in other moral frameworks. Machiavelli isn’t usually thought of as a bastion of morality, and he coined the phrase “the ends justify the means”.
The best answer is probably somewhere in between, but I think many people prefer simple to nuanced answers.
Intent and Outcome are important in other moral philosophies, but for Kant these were hypothetical imperatives: Nothing more than mere whishes, nothing concrete.
For him, moral philosophy should be based on concrete, testable tenets, which have to be unconditionally true (categorical) and are always required (imperative).
While one might disagree with that worldview, Kant's work on this kind of moral philosophy was so comprehensive and - quite franky - logically sound, that to this very day any deontological philosopher or moral theory is still called "Kantian" or in "Kantian tradition"...
To come back to your question: While dismissing intent and outcome can be seen as a limitation of Kant's view, it also provides a very strong logical underpinning for the whole philosophy. Of all the moral philosophies, it's the one based most on pure reasoning.
Of course, it qickly breaks down when pitting two moral wrongs against each other (ratting out innocents vs. lying to state forces, various trolley problems etc.), but any moral system seems to get in trouble in these kind of situations.
I know this is a bit of an ad hominem and an aside, but is it true that Kant was a loner? Do you think his idealist worldviews contributed to that, I.e., his moral philosophy is more fit for theoretical and academic discussions rather than applied in practice, in the sense that philosophy is aimed at living a better life?
It is actually rather easy to apply: If you can generalize an action (i.e. "what would happen if everyone does this in this situation") without contradiction, then it is moral. Otherwise not.
What it cannot do is weigh two actions against each other: Lying is immoral, but so is treason. You might be forced to break one principle to protect the other.
Kant is kinda famous for taking extremist views in these circumstances. He regarded lying as the worst kind of immorality. Which, with a bit of hindsight, leads to the questionable stance, that it is worse to lie to a nazi, than to protect and harbor a jew from death. Obviously not a popular stance nowadays, and probably not even back then...
But you can fix that by applying a different 'order' to the individual principles. Modern kantian theories heavily focus on these parts.
I'm not sure if you can dismiss context entirely when thinking about a single action, I have the feeling that not. But on the other hand, I cannot think of an example where context does matter, but does not simultaniously pit two moral principles against each other... The answer to your first question kinda hinges on that...
About the loner part: Kant was among the most influentual figures in the european enlightenment movement, he wrote the very influental pamphlet "What is the enlightenment", and he regularly held lectures at various universities. I dunno if he was an introvert, but he certainly didn't avoid society or discussions.
He was a racist, though. Even made money through questionable lectures on the inferiority of non white races. Not that uncommon (and widely accepted) in Germany at that time, but yeah... Great intellectual, an actual liberal in many ways, but still a shitty asshole in many others...
And for academic vs practical: Another name for the whole branch of moral philosophy is "practical philosophy". It is not possible to make an actual useful distinction between academic and practical application of morality. The questions are the same, the reasoning is the same. Only difference is if you have to actually go through with your choices, which makes it emotionally different, but not logically...
I'm a bit of a Kant fan, but here are some telling quotes from wikipedia: (Not all about his moral phlosophy thoguh) "Kant's influence on Western thought has been profound." "Kant is credited with having innovated the way philosophical inquiry has been carried at least up to the early nineteenth century" "Arthur Schopenhauer was strongly influenced by Kant's transcendental idealism." "With his Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, Kant is considered to have foreshadowed many of the ideas that have come to form the democratic peace theory, one of the main controversies in political science" "Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls are two significant political and moral philosophers whose work is strongly influenced by Kant's moral philosophy." "Kant's influence also has extended to the social, behavioral, and physical sciences, as in the sociology of Max Weber, the psychology of Jean Piaget and Carl Gustav Jung,[199][200] and the linguistics of Noam Chomsky." "Kant's work on mathematics and synthetic a priori knowledge is also cited by theoretical physicist Albert Einstein as an early influence on his intellectual development, but which he later criticised heavily and rejected."
Edit: y'all are kind of proving my first point.
Broadly speaking, I think there is nothing wrong with, say, videoing yourself serving food at a soup kitchen. It's when you use that video to boost your own profile rather than the virtuous act that it becomes problematic. There are plenty of people that do that. However there are also plenty of people who interpret any public record of virtue as being inherently narcissistic and I think that's just as bad.
The way to go about this is to do the thing without anyone knowing and without displaying it. To do it without expecting any personal gain at all. If a friend tells their friend "afavour brought me soup when I was sick, it was so sweet of them" or if someone asks you what you do in your spare time and you say "sometimes I serve at a soup kitchen." then that's fine because that kind of display, which was prompted by other people, can't really be seen as you seeking to cash out the value of the virtuous act.
Surely that’s in the eye of the beholder? It is possible to interpret it that way, certainly. But applying the observers value judgement (i.e. how it comes off) onto the original actor seems unfair to me.
Sometimes I feel like (and I don’t mean anything personal by this) we’re all cynical bastards these days so when we see someone do something genuinely altruistic we simply cannot process it as such and immediately seek a way to dismiss it as self-serving.
The nuance here is that there's a difference being observed doing a kind act versus purposefully making it a public spectacle. I don't view people I observe doing something altruistic as self-seeking unless they try to "cash in" on it.
I would see someone helping a person in need and think "how kind of them!" But then later, if I see an Instagram post from that person saying "There was this person in need of help and I went over there and did something about it", then it can be seen as self-seeking.
> it can be seen
I still maintain that it’s unfair to project the value judgement of the observer onto the observed, as if the observer is impartial in all of this. It can be seen that way, yes, but it doesn’t have to be. That is the observer’s choice.
The question to ask is where this cynicism came from.
I would argue that it is the performative variety of virtue that has made us mistrust such acts.
We wouldn’t have a reason to doubt one’s intentions if those intentions are indistinguishable on the surface from a popular meme, which is what many of these recorded acts of kindness seem to be.
Only the person carrying out the act knows the truth of what is in their heart, but I would argue that the very act of recording, bolstered by the act of publishing that recording reveals there are other motives involved.
After all, why does one post such a video? To participate in the incentive structure afforded by the social media platform of choice.
Those incentive structures are inherently about self promotion, which feels incompatible with virtue.
Now you could argue that I’m just being cynical about why people post on social media. Maybe that person has a genuine desire to brighten someone else’s day through their own act of kindness. Maybe the guy with the flowers was similarly genuine.
I think the video that is the focal point of this thread provides a good counterpoint to this. It made me uncomfortable when I first saw it (before this article emerged), and now I have a confirmation as to why. Even if the guy had every right intention, the incentive structure of social media overrode his better judgement and blinded him to the impact he was actually having.
I don’t think it is impossible to highlight one’s good work in an appropriate way, and I do think there’s an opportunity to inspire people to do good things, but I’m not convinced that this trend of social media posts has anything to do with that.
Genuinely, why? As in, why is it better to do nothing then to do virtuous action that you also get some benefit from?
1. The recipient doesn't have to cop to/explain their situation that prompted the generosity,
2. The recipient doesn't feel the need to publicly acknowledge the help (which in turn implies publicly explaining that you needed help),
3. The recipient doesn't become a revenue-generator without giving their permission, as happens in this case and others like it
When done in public, these acts cease to be altruism - they're now a business exchange ("content creator" gives you something of value (flowers) in exchange for something else of value (clicks/views/clout)). Except you didn't know you were making this business deal, which is beyond slimy.
IIRC most religious texts teach to do altruism privately, for reasons such as this. Attention-seeking didn't just come about in the internet age, it just got easier.
I think demonstration of virtue would be a better term without this connotation. EG being a role model.
The large amount of virtue signaling has poisoned the Well for people that simply want to promote good deeds and behavior.
Good point. This is a clear example of where "virtue signalling" (leading by example in this case) can be considered a good. rather than an ostentatious, pretentious, or pridefull showing-off of empty virtue.
Bragging about how your food is cruelty free when you don't really care about the food, you care about being able to say that it's cruelty free doesn't make you against animal cruelty except by some absurdly expansive definition of "against".
And there's also 800lb gorilla that is political discourse where people routinely say one thing and then not only do nothing to advance that, they live their lives by something that's close to the opposite.
Rewarding virtue signaling absolves people of much of the requirement to put their money where their mouth is and relaxing that requirement is a bad thing.
All in all, it rewards primary doing and saying nothing. Everyone else can be accused of virtue signaling.
And all terms are made up, and the political leanings of the person who supposedly coined the phrase is irrelevant to its applicability.
neither were "defective" products, just because they caused harm does not make them defective, both lawn darts, and social media are working exactly as the manufacturer intended, calling them "defective" is stretching the definition of the term
if you want to make the case of regulation one does not need to nor should the term defect be perverted to be used to get around legal productions (like free speech). Cocaine is banned not because it is defective but because it is harmful, though I also disagree with the banning of cocaine generally because I do not believe it is role of government to protect someone from self harm
Without that they'd be subject to the same constraints as your average newspaper or TV station. Which is to say not a lot of constraints. But there would in fact be a means to address the consequences of their editorial decisions.
The fact that we've tolerated this for so long is appalling.
As soon as you start deciding to show some content and not other content based on the content of the communications you're making editorial decisions. Algorithms or not, it's a judgement call.
https://www.techdirt.com/2021/10/29/everything-you-know-abou...
Websites and TV stations have the same first amendment protection. The main difference is that users do not contribute content to TV stations. That's what 230 protects.
Public access was very limited in bandwidth: one simply didn't have thousands of people posting content. As a result, public access was heavily curated and subject to the same broadcast restrictions as traditional television.
Even allowing that, public access isn't much of a thing anymore. In modern mainstream television stations, there is absolutely no user-generated content.
Then would it possibly be a better distinction to define them instead as poorly designed products with large negative externalities? If I build a product that meets it's stated goal but poisons the environment around it, it's not "defective" in the myopic view, but poorly designed in the global view. Even taking the libertarian line, doesn't the government have a role in regulating negative externalities?
Some would say a negative exernality like CO2 emissions would raise to the level for government regulations (violating NAP) , other libertarian philosophies would not, viewing it a totalitarian control as human breath expeals CO2 so if the government can regulate it then there are no limits on government at all.
I dont know if I have a good answer
"If the gubmit can tell multinational corps not to pull oil out of the ground, they can make me hold my breath! It produces the same molecule!" Libertarian philosophy in a nutshell.
Your average common-on-the-Internet right-libertarian usually hand-waves away how they're somehow fine and part of the "natural" (I cannot roll my eyes hard enough, in case you couldn't tell) free market. Some of the softer right-libertarians (bleeding over into folks who'd likely style themselves "classical liberals" rather than libertarians) aren't as hard-line and rigid, so don't really have the dilemma to begin with, but they're much less vocal on the Internet, probably in part because they disagree with the average person a lot less than the former sort does, so it just doesn't come up as much.
Speaking for myself, as a left-wing libertarian, I think that corporations, being an artificial creation of society, can come with whatever strings society deems suitable to attach to that privilege - provided that they're the same for everyone.
It’s a philosophy for 12 year olds.
I can come up with any old bullshit by extending arguments to a level of ludicrousness like that. Doesn’t mean you should entertain my bullshit.
humans are social creatures and have alway, always, always lived in a societal hierarchy. Our only genuine political decision we can make is what kind of government we want and how much freedom to give up.
The idea that we can live without giving up any freedoms to a society just means that the strongest, most ruthless person ‘wins’ and is king.
This is just a fact. There is no opinion involved. And the only reason this flavor of internet libertarianism exists is because those espousing it have grown up in relative comfort with no fear of warlords.
"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
well the person I was responding to who specifically talked about libertarian positions.
>>It’s a philosophy for 12 year olds.
Only for those with a 5th grade understanding of philosophy. The rest of your comment highlights your extreme ignorance of libertarian philosophy nicely, because no where in the philosophy do we deny social hierarchy or human nature, infact the primary goal of the different philosophies is to curb the natural tendencies of human nature to seek power over others, the "most ruthless person" wins has been found through out history in all manner of non-libertarian government, and the US Constitution is the closest formation of a libertarian government and has been pretty successful at resisting those natural tendencies, to the extent we have seen revision from that it is directly due to removal libertarian ideas from the US Governmental system and replacing them with majoritarian / collectivist ideals and policies
Luckily, now that Rust exists, our collective psychological makeup is proven to be much safer.
But of course on a deeper physical level, hertzbleed shows that all of us are one Javascript away from becoming Manchurian candidates.
Lately, I find myself wondering whether I'd be able to tell the difference.
In this particular case, I'm not at all sure how this string of words came to be.
I can see it now, "Show HN: Introducing InstaGavage, force-feed all the bullshit from your socials to this neural network and let it throw out the trash."
I don't think this is entirely fair to humanity. I think social media encourages and incentivizes this behavior. Was it there before? Sure. But social media hasn't just exposed it, it has also optimized for it.
Granted this isn't a random act, but at a family birthday gathering sometimes it can be fun to take a photo or video of a loved one opening a present and capturing their genuine surprise as a memory. But I've never uploaded them to the Internet, because it wasn't about likes or shares. And I don't feel that capturing the moment ruined any of the meaning behind it.
Some people have always just wanted to show how good they are instead of trying to actually be good (not saying praying is necessarily good but clearly the people who wrote the bible and the people they're speaking of did :P)
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
False dichotomy. It can be both.
I was about to agree, but then this is deeper than a simple binary. You are right if saying one could act towards another so as to benefit them and yourself. And, if so maximising the total utility that is utilitarianism. No dichotomy. However, and this why Kant's categorical imperative isn't utilitarianism, something cannot be both a means and and an end. A node in a tree cannot be both a parent and a leaf node.
But I'm shy and don't value social media clout. It then morally to me seems that despite the fact that you may judge me for advertising my "random acts of kindness" I should do it anyways, because if I inspire someone else to do said good act, I maximize the good in the world, even if it is a reputational hit to myself or I am embarrassed to do so. This seems compatible with the kingdom of ends, even if it is oppositional to what I see as the general interpretation of it, which is to do the best good, it must be done in private.
Anyways I guess in the spirit of this, I make micro-loans on Kiva (https://www.kiva.org/) and you should too ;-). Or take this time to donate to whatever cause you're passionate about.
I don't think this really helped anyone, but "dehumanizing" is an overreaction, IMO. "Mildly annoying" is probably the more accurate term.
It's absurd and surreal, and yet here we are. People think they're being empathetic by applying these words more widely but it's really reflective of how disconnected people are from reality, and how much narcissistic license they've given themselves. Social media gives people an illusion that they're connected to others, but the effect has mostly been to turn the vast majority of people and issues into caricatures. One might even say it's "dehumanizing", but what's the point.
A decade or two ago the word for criticizing the TikTok video would have been "objectifying". That word got overused, too, but it still had academic connotations (from the feministic movement) that better contextualized the point someone was making. Sadly the political left PC movement has created such an arms race in linguistic virtue signaling that more precise, descriptive language is considered lacking in empathy and therefore, well, "dehumanizing".
"So when you give to the needy, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do ... to be honored by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Matthew 6
"To give charity publicly is good, but to give to the poor privately is better for you, and will absolve you of your sins. And Allah is All-Aware of what you do." Al-Baqarah 272
Which is my being pedantic on the coin side, to point out that pedantry isn't really needed on the metaphorical side.
I have yet to meet a Christian believer IRL who has actual faith that their sins have already been absolved so heaven has already effectively been attained
Maybe that's more common in other corners of the world? I haven't met many people who actually act as if they know they'll be saved as opposed to hoping they'll be saved
That said, Jesus commanded his followers to practice charity often and directly linked doing so with gaining rewards in heaven.
Love of ones fellow man.
> I would have thought there were some sort of reward for charity in Christianity.
To the extent that there may be, that reward is not generally viewed in most Christian doctrine as the motivator. Christianity is not, predomonantly, doctrinally, transactional in that way.
(Transactional personal beliefs are, however, far more common in Christianity than formal doctrine would suggest, and political Christianity frequently invokes a transactional view that is at odds with common doctrine.)
Hmm interesting. I wonder is love really a motivator? It's more of a reason, right? "I give charity because I love my fellow man". I feel like that's not inclusive.
Like what about people who don't love their fellow man all that much? I mean is that even allowed?-- If I'm a Christian do I have to love my fellow man to the point of charity? What if I call myself Christian but I think most people are rude and selfish and have a hard time loving them.. does that make me not Christian? I'm sure there are people who are Christian and have a hard time loving humanity, seems like they would be not included. I suppose the reward aspect still applies so it makes sense for everyone.
I like the idea, it's very philosophically pure. But I'm surprised it actually works in real life. It seems to me like that would encompass only a minority. Maybe that's more a reflection of the times we're in than anything else. Hope you don't mind the probing questions-- I'm not trying to poke holes in these beliefs I'm just trying to understand them completely
I'm not sure I understand the distinction you are drawing here.
> Like what about people who don't love their fellow man all that much? I mean is that even allowed?
“Allowed” as in “not sinful”? No.
“Allowed” as in “forgivable”? Yes.
> If I'm a Christian do I have to love my fellow man to the point of charity?
For certain values of “have to”, yes, though it doesn't have to be expressed by giving money to a recognized charity. But equally Christianity means you have to accept that virtually every actual person will fall short of what they “have to” do.
> What if I call myself Christian but I think most people are rude and selfish and have a hard time loving them.. does that make me not Christian?
No, having a hard time doesn't make you not Christian.
Weird family traditions I suppose.
So still selfish (if doing it for the reward), but that is human nature.
It doesn't map one-to-one to the way we typically conceptualize rewards or self interest or altruism.
The reason I think that, is because in ancient Roman times they had a way of counting on your fingers where you could count up to 100 on your left hand alone (then you could use your right hand after that for even larger values). [1]. So if the context is "small values" and charitable giving, it makes more sense to me at least.
"do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret."
It's just hyperbolic/poetic language. It's not possible to do something in such a way that your right hand doesn't know what your left hand is doing, because they are both connected centrally (and they can't know anything to begin with).
"Be so secretive that your resting hand doesn't know what your charitable hand is doing."
I don't think it's possible for apes who evolved and outcompeted other apes in the endeavor to become the dominant species on a planet to be truly altruistic. At least not without a lot more cultural, social, and possibly biological evolution, if ever.
Doesn't matter though. What difference does it make how "true" one's altruism is?
Doing good for others should feel good! And if that internal reaction helps us want to continue doing good for others, then that's also a good thing.
I think also we should be less concerned about labeling ourselves this way. I would not try to make "altruist" a part of my identity (or "egoist", for that matter). You are just someone who does good things for others, and -- incidentally -- that makes you feel good. That should be enough.
> We are afraid that heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives.
"Take care of your body or else it will grow weak and sick" has a directive and a warning of consequences---is it a threat?
There need not be a consequence of failing to follow the Christian Bible; God/Satan have decided that there will be consequences, and Satan will be the one torturing you if you don't do what God says. That's definitely a threat. In these stories, God and Satan are conscious, sentient beings with free will. They can choose to reward or punish you based on whatever criteria they've decided.
If God is good, why do bad things happen?
I never got an answer that resonated with me. Wound up not pursuing theology.
‘I don’t understand something therefore there is no God’ is one of the most common trains of thought that lead to atheism.
Especially and most commonly ‘How could a loving God allow x.’
There isn’t an easy answer to this stuff and I wouldn’t expect there to be. The notion that the universe is easily comprehensible is a framework of thinking that only gets there by discarding everything NOT easily comprehensible and calling the remainder ‘real.’
When people ask why a loving god would allow bad things to happen I want to reply ‘how would you do it better? Design a universe that has meaningful goodness without suffering and evil. Explain how it would work …’
> Design a universe that has meaningful goodness without suffering
Without meaning offense, “you try it” is one of the weaker defenses of religion I’ve heard…
I view it as a wonderful resource that people deny themselves through overweighting their own cleverness.
What you call hypocrisy I call a mystery or an enigma or something that it might takes decades of work to understand.
How can you be called by something that doesn’t exist? Or you are saying it does exist but isn’t good. Or the practice isn’t good.
I just don’t understand why lacking a good explanation for the existence of suffering that you, personally, can wrap your mind around would be such a deal breaker.
I’m sure it makes sense to you. I just don’t think that way, at least not anymore.
By some views every action you take is motivated by some psychological reward, and if you follow that through you end up with a view that there's no good/bad/emotion/etc and everything is purely mechanical.
So the "reward" in this case is you becoming one with Christ and thus closer to God. It's not a "currency" to be accumulated to attain Heaven. This is why you can't "fake" your way through it by for example donating money to the poor or the Church and thinking that will impress God.
I think what Christians say before receiving the Eucharist at Mass really summarizes this nicely: "Lord I am not worthy to receive you".
I've never been to a protestant church where they believe you receive a sort of saving grace from consuming the host - though there is agreement it is pleasing to God to do it.
In the Catholic church they definitely believe you receive some sort of grace. What "kind" of grace is something I still haven't wrapped my head around.
In all of Christianity though, there is an understanding that our sin is a failure to live up to God's holiness and standards, and that in Protestantism one of the pillars (5 solas) is that it is only through his grace, mercy, and love for us that Jesus came to die, and that our salvation is due to his grace alone and not something individually inherent in ourselves that makes us worthy.
I'm hedging all of that with the fact that there's a lot of religions/denominations/cults that call themselves "Christian", and many believe very different things.
Some non-reformed baptists and non-denominationals are memorialist, but historically most protestant churches do consider it a sacrament.
[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/ccc/westminster/of_the... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharist_in_Lutheranism [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican_eucharistic_theology [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_theology#Methodist...
My confusion was that I was equating transubstantiation with it being a sacrament...so to my knowledge only Anglicans have preserved full transubstantiation (with others having some mixture of Christ being present)
[1] https://www.arbca.com/1689-chapter30 [2] https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/#vii
I think it's safe to say that in almost all protestant denominations, the Eucharist is not a means of salvation though. I would hope that all would say salvation is through grace alone through faith alone. Let me know if you disagree though, I'd be curious of exceptions.
Definitely agree that most every Protestant church would agree that it's not a means of salvation, but I do think most would call it a means of grace though.
Not clear the passage is about selfishness per-se at all.
And since presumably reward from heaven is the ultimate in delayed gratification.
There's a lot of ancient wisdom that has stood the test of time in there, from which many could benefit. As we move away from the idea of a man-like god running the universe, I hope we still keep the good bits.
I see Matthew worked as a mid-level manager in a tech company.
2. Inversed cause and effect. Even if you aren't Christian, there's a good chance that the morals you were taught as a child are influenced by it. The Christian Bible is literally the world's best selling book.
Someone told me to be selfless // But we are helpless without attention // Wealthy people learn the lesson // And never donate without the press there //
Instead of giving publicly to receive an extrinsic reward, instead you should give in secret to receive a different but still extrinsic reward.
Of course, a non-believer donating in secret is also probably doing it in order to obtain an intrinsic reward of self-satisfaction, and there’s no real reason why I should view the intrinsic reward self-satisfaction as any more worthy than the extrinsic motivation of God’s reward.
I don’t have any really coherent point here, it just seemed somewhat interesting…
Consider also the story of the Good Samaritan: Jesus tells the story of a person who goes out of his way to help someone in need. He incurs risk (helping the man meant risking getting caught in an ambush), expense (oil and wine for the wounds plus paying the innkeeper), and inconvenience (he had to interrupt his journey to help). Jesus tells us this is how we should treat our neighbor.
The Samaritan is also assuredly not Christian so isn’t doing this to gain eternal life in heaven through faith in Jesus. It’s pretty obvious and indisputable altruism.
When you think about what this is really easy to see is a = b. That I am rewarded with promise of heaven for a deed, or hope of being well-respected by others who see what I've done, affects the same object: ego. It's not driven by desire to help others (compassion, love or else), but desire to be seen /judged as good by others.
There is a c) (and more for sure). The much more mundane reason c) is "give to people and let your reward be the feeling you get that you do a good thing". Good thing can be in this case simply the result of mental congruence of your act with, say, your utilitarian belief that "helping others by decreasing their suffering is good".
If I tell people "a good act is when you help others to help them maximize utility", it's a moral stance. It's a very different moral stance than "a good act is when you do what someone says you should do in order to get eternal life".
The former is far better from ego-point of view, and less prone to corruption, and focuses on the values and reasons why somethign is good, in other words - promotes understanding and is clear why it's good. The latter promotes blind following and subservience to anothe person/being becomgin the guide of y our actions.
It's clear that most people need a guide, but be careful what kind of guide you pick.
Is it that you feel that a quote from a fantastic book measures the goodness or evilness of the act or are you just saying that someone else already found himself in this dilema in the past and wrote a parable about it with its personal judgement?
I also am not religious, but there is a hebrew tradition of Tzedakah mentioned by another poster below, but here are the levels instead of a link.,
Maimonides defines eight levels in giving charity (tzedakah), each one higher than the preceding one.
On an ascending level, they are as follows:
8. When donations are given grudgingly.
7. When one gives less than he should, but does so cheerfully.
6. When one gives directly to the poor upon being asked.
5. When one gives directly to the poor without being asked.
4. Donations when the recipient is aware of the donor's identity, but the donor still doesn't know the specific identity of the recipient.
3. Donations when the donor is aware to whom the charity is being given, but the recipient is unaware of the source.
2. Giving assistance in such a way that the giver and recipient are unknown to each other. Communal funds, administered by responsible people are also in this category.
1. The highest form of charity is to help sustain a person before they become impoverished by offering a substantial gift in a dignified manner, or by extending a suitable loan, or by helping them find employment or establish themselves in business so as to make it unnecessary for them to become dependent on others.Also, isn't most important stuff older than Jesus? Like, he's a bit of a best-of compilation, right? Not to denigrate the story, I'm a big fan.
There's a lot of other baggage with that one particular culture.
I forgot to stipulate a lot of other things besides just lack of usury that I would like to have in a culture.
It might just be that lack of usury leads to economic stagnation.
This reminded me how some municipalities with homelessness issues will often spend homeless-related funds toward subsidizing living expenses for people who are not homeless, but are living on the edge and would end up losing their homes if not for some extra help. It's much easier and better (and cost-effective!) to help keep someone in a home, than it is to wait until they are on the streets before helping them.
Same goes for identifiable information like license plates. For example if you film a parking lot at a cancer hospital. You need to obfuscate the plates.
If you install security cameras the some law applies, you can only film your own property and must make sure you are not filming neighbour, street or anything else. You must also post a sign indicating that a security camera is installed. Public security cameras (train etc) all require posted signs and have a strict retention policy as well as how footage is released.
Same law applies to drones or any other way you could make a photo or film so it automatically makes it illegal to film into windows or get close enough to specifically identify people on the ground.
In extremely rare and extreme cases the police may publish someones foto or video footage if it helps solve a case but it's an exception because even criminals have the right to privacy.
The concept of "it is public, so it is fair game" can no longer be applied.
The objective standard of "you're in public so it's fair game" doesn't care if you have ultra-high resolution footage, if you're hiding in a bush, if you're doing X or Y so it's very easy to apply. Meanwhile "someone can't be the focus without consent" is a somewhat subjective standard that could easily become hard to apply.
Most videos posted online like this of the woman the center of attention is quite clear. If you are posting a video of a group of people whom happen to just be there it's also clear that it wasn't the intent of the video to record those people. Yes, it's subjective but the point of the law is to not completely outlaw video taping but to protect peoples privacy.
You also always have the option to blur peoples faces/beep their voice and then there is no issue when posting the video online. You can post a video of a person "freaking out" as long as they are not identifiable.
I don't see a difference between when someone records you with an ultra wide lens/high res than if someone is using a hidden camera at a pool. Both are illegal and most people except creeps aren't doing it.
I don't know about Switzerland specifically, but usually the restriction on this kind of right is on distribution/publication.
Hmmm.... seems more likely designed to get engagement.
Presumably he doesn't love the woman, as he doesn't know anything at all about her, so that one is a lie for a start.
And I guess he doesn't feel any compassion for her either, as he hasn't taken it down without forcing her to contact him, which she probably doesn't want to do.
Mr Beast is incredibly successful at this, in that his stunts produce massive numbers for very little outlay. A friend's kid in his teens was telling me about how he's the most generous person he's ever seen and it make me wince a little as I really don't want to be that guy and wade into it with a "well, actually".
Social media has made the world an incredibly vapid place.
I hope anyway.
Whether it’s TikTok videos with that awful TTS voiceover reading the caption (I can read it myself, thanks) or YouTube videos that now always start with a ~5 seconds extract which spoils the entire video, or gaming videos with insufferable personalities. Oh and don’t forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell!
I vastly prefer this to the kind of “informational” video that’s designed to keep you watching a 10 minute video for the 10 second answer
Blizzard would probably require him to spend all the money though, as more money = more clicks.
I think both are no.
Not to suggest he's operating in any way like a non-profit, but they all receive money and then distribute that money in ways that either increase the future money they can use for their mission or directly on the mission itself. The fact that he's built a self-sustaining model for helping individuals without merely forking over his own assets is impressive.
His first viral "giveaway" video was him giving a homeless person $10,000. That wasn't his money. He got a company to invest in him by giving him the money to donate (while filming it) and promised them a return on their money. It's been a business venture from the outset.
That said, it doesn't really bother me. If he makes $1m dollars giving away $500k, so be it. He reinvests that money back into his business, that employs many, many people and sometime finds its way back to those in need. He's not inherently rich, he needs to make money to donate it and his means of making that money is sometimes exploiting the very act for likes, clicks and ad revenue.
Be that guy; what's your criticism about Mr Beast's generosity? He does a lot of content which could be fake; like giving his friends $20,000, but ones which look more serious and genuine and costly include:
- Opened a "free bank" where he loaned money into six figures to local people, then surprise! it's not a loan, they can keep it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORUX1lHbOa8
- Bought everything in a supermarket and donated it to a food bank: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha4tRQwKIUg
- Donated $100k to plant trees, and organised a fundraiser which raised $21M to plant 20M trees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPJKxAhLw5I
- Ran a contest of TV show style challenges (endurance, falling into goop) with some of his viewers as contestents, with a million dollar prize at the end that one of them won: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ4m4zD7BBA
- Gave away three houses or free rent for a year in them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJH28ICkCdU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfv1QaRzJg8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cCpZl8euLI
- Bought every car in a car dealership and gave them away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LLnjRLrvLU
- Gives his credit card to people, encouraging them to spend tens thousands of dollars on things they get to keep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYVjOfoU3uI
What's vapid or not generous enough about these for your liking?
It's like when nestle announces they are going to plant 1 million trees - like yeah, it's very generous of you, no doubt - but you are doing it as a marketing exercise.
Mr Beast is making money this way. I am extremely far from saying that there's anything wrong with it - but it's not charity in my mind. It's just a business that happens to benefit random bystanders from time to time.
I share an unsettled feeling about this. I think it is because things like this are a visceral reminder of differences between the rich and poor. A life altering struggle for a poor person is a solved by ten minutes of amusement from a rich person - "here, take my card and buy whatever you need."
I'm not saying it's not. I don't want him to stop. But I don't think I'd call it charity personally(and some people do, that's why I'm making this point).
Like, let me try again with an example - if you pull $10k out of your account and give it to a homeless person, that's charity, right?
Ok, but what if you get someone to invest $10k into you making a youtube video, because you promise them they will make this money back from monetization, and you then record a youtube video of giving the homeless person that exact $10k. The video then proceeds to make way more than that $10k in revenue. Is that charity too? After all the end result is the same - the homeless person was given money. Or is it just good business?
The second example is exactly what Mr Beast has done. I'm not saying he shouldn't have - just observing that what he does, the entire spectacle of it - it's just a business venture.
Any one of the aforementioned things could have been done at any time, anywhere, on an ongoing basis, that would have helped communities in a sustainable way.
When he gives the cars away, or makes loans to people, he often films people getting significantly different amounts (or items of significantly differing value) simultaneously. I would assume the reactions are more valuable when someone has gotten less than one of their friends in the same group - this in particular is cruelty, not kindness.
Even setting the above aside, the big issue I have with it is that it’s not charity or altruism but is masquerading as such for profit. This is his business. Every act is a carefully calculated profit/loss equation relative to how many views he thinks he can get.
Typically philanthropy would be considered willingly disposing of money you earned elsewhere when it’s not necessary for you to do so, in order to help a cause.
Beast isn’t doing this. He’s reinvesting his profits into growing his business.
You wouldn’t call a mechanic a philanthropist for fixing people’s cars for money, even though they’ve done something that people appreciated.
At best, Beast is redistributing the ad revenue from his viewers and skimming signifcantly from the top (given that it’s expected he’s approaching billionaire status).
For what it’s worth I do respect his business acumen. He’s found a good hustle and is working it very well.
You could make the same case for Walmart: look at all the people (employees) they hand money out to! With many of them likely having much tougher lives than I do and thus being absolutely deserving of the money. But Walmart does it for the sole reason that it improves their bottom line —- just like Mr Beast.
Do you think Mr Beast would insist on spending millions in a video if he could create the same income from just “Giving $1.5 to strangers!” videos?
Mr. Beast’s brand, and presumably identity, centers around a Calvinist ethic that hard work is a virtue even when exerted to meaningless ends. There’s a ‘don’t act too big for your britches’ undercurrent as well, flashy cars are props returned at the end of the day, not the spoils. He trades a lot of the mawkish sentimentality for self-deprecation.
Another practical difference is that giving strangers money provides more actual utility vs a bouquet of flowers. His targets for interaction are usually more appropriate, often people he has a reason to interact with or where he asks for participation.
I don't fault them. They're only responding the world that we, the older generation, are implicitly condoning. Fact is, our culture does not teach the benefits of generosity much, and the few instances we see are often highly public: "$FAMOUS_PERSON donates $LARGE_SUM to $NONPROFIT!" Anonymous donors are never trumpeted the same way.
There is a marketplace for virtues, and people need role models.
Good luck convincing people of this. One of the primary purposes of religion was to provide that role model figure, but society has thrown out that concept altogether. Nowadays I see more of a "everyone is flawed and whoever you think is a role model is probably a secret pervert or something" philosophy as common. So what does anyone expect? If we decide the theological/moral foundation of society is false without replacing it, then obviously morality will change as a result. It's like throwing out the bath water, and then complaining that there's no baby for some mysterious reason.
Some of these incidents even make the news, positioned as some heartwarming feel good story.
In short from the perspective of the attention seeker/clout beast - it works.
I think it's not lack of compassion but lack of understanding. He probably thinks the lady is trying to milk the episode for likes. I'm guessing he has no capacity to comprehend that her life may not revolve around social media likes.
I always find these videos cheesy and fake and assumed they had received legal permission (if not hired actors to pose). If these jerks are filming and posing unwilling participants in their product, that seems pretty easy to remedy.
I remember a few years ago pornhub had a decision to get positive consent from people in videos to prevent revenge porn and other types of content. I guess TikTok needs something similar for videos with1M+ views.
It seems TikTokpays out between 2 and 4 cents per thousand views [0]. So if this video has 59M views it seems the creator made between $1,180 and $2,360.
So should be a simple small claims lawsuit. Maybe add in treble damages.
What would be really fun is to use the messed up class action lawsuit apparatus to create a class of victims that are in these videos that are uncompensated and just sue TikTok directly.
I like how the creator offered to take the video down, if asked. No apology and no offer to give back the money he made from the video.
[0] https://www.thetealmango.com/technology/how-much-does-tiktok...
This can cover public places too, some localities require a permit to film a public place for commercial use.
We can't hold so tightly to free speech that it erodes reasonable individual rights, but what's "reasonable" is often a grey area. Worth debating.
A journalist presumably isn't going to be getting permission to film, they are going to show up to where the news is and film.
The intent is wildly different between actual journalism, and indie film or art project shoot, and behaving obnoxiously towards bystanders in order to directly convert attention into money.
Does TikTok require a business account or something like that in order to be paid? That could be a useful indicator.
Of course, you can sue for literally anything, but what damages would they claim?
It’s more like “this is my property, I make it available to public under some conditions, this guy violates that condition”.
That said, the reality is that property owners and adjacent people often benefits from property being featured in a viral video. Unless US adopts similar restrictions as South Korea on photographing strangers, I guess these cases will keep happening.
But that's ... a crime. Generally you can't sue for damages after a crime unless you can claim damages.
I'm sure he would, so long as she gave back the flowers.
Despite using the same terminology as copyright law, the rights photographers have are different and the use of terminology is different.
To use the USA as an example because it's easier, photographers always have the right take photos on public property and they do not need consent to do so, and they also have the right to publish those photos and do not need consent to do so. Traditionally publishing would have meant publishing to print or broadcast media (i.e., news) where commercial activity is inherently implied. Today, publishing would also include posting to a blog, social media, sites like YouTube, etc.
Where photographers usually need consent is using those images commercially, however since they already have the right to publish (and to profit from) images, what commercial use in this context means is to use those images in advertising, to use those images in merchandise, to sell those photos to image libraries (think stock photography websites), etc. This is in contrast to copyright law where there's no publish/commercial distinction and where a licence prohibiting commercial use prohibits selling that work.
Of course none of that applies here, it was filmed on private property where the mall owner likely requires consent before people can take photos, and also because it's Australia which doesn't give blanket permission for people to take and publish photos without consent. However if Australia is anything like the UK the restrictions are that you can't take photos, or publish photos, of people that have an expectation of privacy, although this was filmed in a public place so there's likely no expectation to privacy.
This reminds me of when high schoolers get the "generous" idea of nominating an unpopular girl, who they never talk to and only talk about, for prom queen. There's nothing nice about it.
I had a fun experience with the Instagram-effect recently. I tried to visit an arboretum earlier this year (don't judge me, it's interesting!) and I couldn't get near the viewing platform because someone had a crew lighting their shots for Instagram. They asked me to wait for a couple of minutes to get finished, which I did. Ten minutes later a crowd had built up on the ramp and I just pushed past and said "all right good work today everyone we got what we need that's a wrap!". It's nuts.
It's also weirdly disturbing to me that the presence of someone with an expensive looking camera was enough for a lot of them to just walk on past instead of enjoying the day out they paid for.
Why would you be judged for that? Botanical gardens are great.
I'm a naturally nice guy, but these people were making my vacation less enjoyable for no reason, and I felt an instinctive urge to ruin their experience as well.
Museums are usually closed on Mondays, why not make "photographer Tuesday" a thing for instance?
In my experience, professional productions are usually very intentional about not getting in the way of people just trying to go about their day. We were filming at a busy coffee shop in January, and we held for filming whenever a customer wanted to buy a coffee. The producers were pretty serious about not disrupting the business we were filming at.
Asserting that he's lying without knowing that he's lying is a mild form of libel. In the scale of moral wrongs, calling someone "a despicable human being" and a liar is arguably worse than giving a woman flowers for views.
> If she requests him to take down the video he will do that.
The video should've been taken down already.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-money-tiktokers-mak...
Particularly considering his current caption for the video remains "A beautiful gesture - little big moments".
Yesterday on my timeline was a video of a machine in a factory in China that rotates a drum 180 degrees. It had a million views and 30k likes.
I’ve never seen the signal to noise ratio anywhere this terrible for any other social media app.
Sign out of YouTube and see what's "popular".
What does this mean? Instagram is used for current content.
Is the tide finally turning? Even a few months ago people were making superlative claims about how insanely good tiktok's recommendation system is. People claiming it's never-seen-before levels of addictivness. My experience has been a lot more mediocre.
The battle for privacy was lost a long time ago :(
These have been on TV for ages and as far as I know they require written consent from the victims.
If that is the case, she might have a case in court.
https://www.wheelofconsent.coach/what-is-the-wheel-of-consen...
https://web.archive.org/web/20210801103538/https://www.wheel...
> She said she had ask whether she was being filmed, and was told “no”. She also said she offered the flowers back to Pawluk.
> A friend contacted Maree that evening, sharing the uploaded video. At the time, Maree “didn’t think much of it”.
> But after seeing the TikTok video featured in media reports describing her as an “elderly woman” with a “heartbreaking tale,” she said she “felt dehumanised”.
> “I feel like clickbait,” she said.
It really sounds like she agreed until she read that as well.
The blast on TikTok might rate but she's not portrayed in a negative light. Personally I just find it all very weird.
Imagine me coming up to you during those times and interrupting them, while secretly filming your response.
You find out later you've been filmed, and that the person who interrupted you is getting paid for the footage they collected of you without your knowledge.
Millions of people have now seen how you react when interrupted, and are leaving comments about how much you look like you "needed" interrupting. Maybe a coworker or relative sees you.
>Imagine me coming up to you during those times and interrupting them
Minor inconvenience
>while secretly filming your response.
Weird
>You find out later you've been filmed, and that the person who interrupted you is getting paid for the footage they collected of you without your knowledge.
Weird but not really any skin off my back.
>Millions of people have now seen how you react when interrupted, and are leaving comments about how much you look like you "needed" interrupting.
Weird
>Maybe a coworker or relative sees you
"I saw you on Tiktok"
"Yeah, it's so weird"
Also, I don't think there is a clear and well defined line of exactly when something becomes dehumanizing. If the definition is "only when nothing else is more dehumanizing", then almost nothing is. But more importantly, when using strong wording to describe human emotions, it's not to be taken too literally. Otherwise next you'll be arguing with this woman about what you think she felt.
Sure, but I'm not focusing on that individual person (which I feel sorry for), more about the state of the so-called discourse in general. Had she just said "that prankster from TikTok behaved like a total jerk", it wouldn't make a headline in The Guardian and we wouldn't be commenting : ) Which is sort of my point.
People's choice of words can be quite arbitrary, people would say they're starving when they discover their favorite sandwich shop is closed on their way to work and they're left with no lunch, and yet you probably won't run a headline like "PEOPLE REPORT THEY'RE STARVING ON CHESHIRE STREET" ;) According to one of the comments here even I, too, "dehumanized" the woman ("your attempt to gatekeep who can feel dehumanized has actually dehumanized this woman again."), apparently it becomes a "one-size-fits-all" term, which again aligns with the point I'm making.
> Also, I don't think there is a clear and well defined line of exactly when something becomes dehumanizing.
And I think it's reasonably clear and it doesn't take a degree in linguistics to decipher the meaning - to dehumanize is to demean or obscure someone's humanity. Merely doing something someone doesn't like (even if rightly so) is not quite that.
Of course I can't stop anyone from using words very liberally. One can say they feel dehumanized because someone shortchanged them at the counter, or cut in line (after all, cutting in line often involves treating others like they don't exist, or as if they were objects - not to mention the "for profit" label certainly applies, if time is money).
Similarly I can't (nor do I intend to) stop anyone from thinking that such silly, intrusive pranks actually "spread love and compassion", even though as the article points out, a lot of people tend to agree ("it attracted largely supportive comments"). Those people, along with the TikToker himself, obviously have the right to feel that way too, yet somehow being sceptical about the vailidity of this interpretation is suddenly fine and doesn't constitute "gatekeeping", go figure : )
The internet is so full of hatred and vitriol. I had to leave Instagram because I couldn't stand the constant political diatribes, gotcha-style quotes and clips, etc. It just brought so much negativity into my life, and I'm much happier without seeing it anymore.
I do see the point[0] that this video is more of a virtue display than a random act of kindness. But, I think the real point of the video is to make viewers happy when they watch it, and I think that's a good thing, even if the creator has some sort of profit motive behind it.
The creator was wrong to lie to the woman about being filmed. He forced her into a situation where she felt patronized and dehumanized. He could've deleted the video and done it to the next person he saw, who maybe wouldn't have felt the same way and would've wanted to participate.
But that doesn't mean that this type of content is vile and disgusting as a category, just because it's not a "true random act of kindness." A lot of us want to see content that just, well, feels nice.
Really, putting things on the groud or some other higher surface to free your hands should be a basic human skill by now.
As you walk away with said thing, that person will accuse you of stealing and use it as means for a physical altercation.
59m views. What about the money?
If this...if that...not actually proactively doing anything unless they really get pressured to do it.
Anecdotally, many years ago I was at an outdoor park and they were filming a fitness reality show. The fitness coach was making the participant do random workouts throughout the park. In one of those random workouts, I was in the background of the filming. Immediately as I was out of frame, a production assistant provided a release form to authorize the use of my likeness in a broadcast.
Could really use some new laws here.
Edit: And that influencers think they are above existing laws when it comes to consent ain't a big surprise neither. I agree with the woman here, handing stuff to people that don't want it, lying to them about being filmed and using the footage for petty self promotion and monetary gain is the opposite of kindness. In fact it is borderline abbusive.
In most systems, legislators have smaller constituencies than the executives. No President or Prime Minister will swing meaningful votes by prioritizing enforcement of consent-to-be-photographed laws. But an MP or Congressperson with an off-year primary projected to be within a 1,000-vote margin might find those 50 or 60 extra votes helpful.
That said, the ordinary course would be for said legislator to compel the executive to enforce. Not to write more laws. (The latter being easier to do, easier to message and less prone to backfiring.)
In addition, requiring the consent of people in public places would make it difficult for individuals to record illegal conduct committed by others, especially law enforcement.
The states have had no difficulty in specifically making it illegal to record law enforcement, so they understand exceptions. You can easily require consent from people while as an institution giving consent for law enforcement to be filmed.
And those laws are running up against the 1st Amendment. https://www.rcfp.org/secret-recording-ban-ruling/
While the issue has not yet been delegated to the US Supreme Court, recording laws have been or are being struck down in more states on 1st Amendment grounds.
> You can easily require consent from people while as an institution giving consent for law enforcement to be filmed.
IANAL, but such legislation would be a content-based restriction and, as a result, would be subject to strict scrutiny. Frankly, any such requirement is unlikely to survive strict scrutiny unless it seeks to prohibit currently unprotected expressions (obscenity, incitement to imminent lawless action, etc.). Recording an individual in public isn't one of them.
A particular person as the main subject, yes, consent is absolutely necessary. E.g. newspapers don't buy or publish pictures of people without gwtting consent of the model / person from the seller. Persons of public interest, read promis and paparazzis, are different in the details of the interpretation of that law. And those are litigated often enough.
Perhaps you're referring to audio? If so, audio has different requirements as a result anti-wiretapping laws.
> If you film a mall, no consent from those people in the shot needed. A demonstration, sake thing, no consent required.
Permission may be required from the mall and/or storefront owners if you're filming on or inside the property.
http://www.montpellier-journal.fr/fichiers/circulairephotosp...
And see here where the French Constitutional Council struck down a law that would have criminalized filming with the intent to cause harassment of officers:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210520-french-court-...
It's far from a clear cut law, if you just appear in the corner of a frame or in the background you'd have a hard time winning any lawsuits, but in this case I think the deck would be stacked against the Tiktoker pretty unfavourably.
Personally, I think it's offensive how often these social media posters will use other people for their profits. Doing tricks in front of the camera is a fine way to make some cash or get famous, but when you start filming interactions with other people just for social media clout it's disgusting, narcissistic behaviour. This isn't some fun event that happend spontaneously, this is a planned, well thought out video shoot that puts a stranger in the center of attention in world where any moderate amount of attention can result in death threats from strangers across the globe.
An act of kindness you show others is not an act of kindness. Its a negative on your character.
This lady should sue if possible. So sick of these vapid, self obsessed “influencers”. So tacky. So worthless.
It's maddening that a "creator" (read: grifter) does this but what I find even more upsetting is how well it works. Millions of likes and comments celebrating it.
There was a time where these kind of actions were more pure and we didn't need to be this cynical. It's probably already more than a decade ago, but I remember a video series themed "being nice to men".
The idea being that men live in an emotional desert and rarely receive compliments or acts of kindness, often not even from their very own friends. So when they do receive it, it's a system shock.
For example, the main character would attend an old guy in the park and say how cool it is that he feeds the pigeon daily. And then walk away. You could see the old man processing it. First puzzled, then delighted. It made his day, but probably his decade.
Middle-aged men were even more puzzled and initially perceived it as an attack. Wtf does this guy want from me? Why would anybody do anything nice for me, what's the agenda here? Legend goes they're still thinking about what happened that day.
Anyway, it was a cool theme (almost a social study), no monetization, and the participants were later informed and asked for permission to publish. I don't think it's possible in today's landscape to do this the genuine way, the incentives have changed too much.
also, we need new rules. while it makes sense to have no expectations of privacy in public, i think an expectation of not being an unwitting participant in someone else's self-promotional quasi-commercial activities where your picture and voice may be broadcast to millions is reasonable.
Meanwhile: I'm responding to a hnews post about engagement bait because it makes me upset
The strange perspective and sense of entitlement of a successful TikTok influencer…
you can be kind and helpful without camera rolling
not this guy though, he's desperate for attention and validation (watch me, i'm a good person), and wants that ad money to not work a regular job
This is the Bad Place, frens.
My TikTok is entirely people demonstrating arts and crafts and DIY projects. Oh, and some cute animals.
If your TikTok consists only of things you don't like... that's your choice, I guess.
Then again I wonder: Is this a new phenomenon? Weren’t these kind of jokes normal for certain TV shows? And now they have made their way into social media?
And, at least here in Germany, they always got permission after the bit and either did not send it if permission was refused or at least blurred the face. Ain't so for social media comedians. :/
[EDIT] Added a start time (1:40).
Did you mean to link to a particular time? That link is just to a whole episode.
There most people thought it was all well and good to spend 50M to advertise a 100k kindness. This is just business.
Here people (IMO correctly) see this a virtue signaling and not kindness.
To me there is really no difference, Dominos did not do kindness, neither did this tiktok douche. All calculated to mislead people into thinking you are better. Vile scam artists.
At the end of the day, the public still gets a park. Good has been done.
Fixating on motivates is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There aren't "good people" or "bad people". There are just people, and motives are almost always mixed.
The people who are smearing this kid are acting worse than the kid himself. I'll drink your downvotes. Yes, I think you're being nastier than the kid, who was doing some boring grifting.
He was unemphatic, but you're being downright cruel. "Vile scam artist" "TikTok douche". He's a human being, and what he did was wrong, but I nevertheless think he's morally superior to most of you, who are dehumanizing him much more thoroughly than he dehumanized the woman.
His behavior was bad, and yours is worse.
In case of dominos the ratio is so much out of whack that the profit motive completely drowns the good.
In case of this tiktok dude what good was being made at all? Some emotional buttons were pushed in watchers? Do it hundreds of times and they are desensitized to actual goodness. All in the name of what, a few bucks to be made?
So bringing your park example to extreme: someone murders, is bad, but vilifying him would still be worse?
I'll leave you with a quote from Batman: "criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling#Narcissists_and_abuse...
This problem existed before Tik Tok but the platform makes it so insanely easy to go viral doing it.
> But after seeing the TikTok video featured in media reports describing her as an “elderly woman” with a “heartbreaking tale,” she said she “felt dehumanised”.
Not trying to support the tiktoker, who is obviously a douchebag. But it's interesting that the negative emotions didn't trigger until it becomes news.
This doesn't seem to accurately reflect Maree's own description of events.
Given that she said he interrupted her quiet time and then left her with an annoying problem to solve (what do I do with these flowers I don't want?), it's clear that this interaction started with negative emotions.
Just the scale of negative emotions increased when the scale of the interaction increased. Which makes sense - imagine being reminded dozens of times over a period of days about what started as a minor negative experience.
It's not like something changed magically for no reason because humans are weird.
I'm pretty sure it was some TikTok idiocy.
I get that adolescents have always been pretty nasty, but I don't think this licentiousness with random (and older) strangers was ever this prevalent.
Turns out shooting from the hip produces a lot of creepy angles on callypigian figures you were honest-to-god not trying to do. (Would a creepster use film?)
This will stop these horrible “acts of kindness” that are nothing but attempts at going viral and making money with blatant disregard for their victims.
Many people have a wish about how we should appear to others. When that breaks down, they feel bad. Being able to laugh one's self and accept one's imperfection is a good remedy.
Is this really how one apologizes these days.
“I hate when I'm on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like oh great now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle” Kanye West
Apparently no one knows or has seen Alan Funt's Candid Camera. This was no worse than hundreds of situations that Funt created, filmed and put in TV over decades.
However, in this specific case, I think the biggest problem was that falsehoods were being spread about this person without her consent. From the article:
But after seeing the TikTok video featured in media reports describing her as an “elderly woman” with a “heartbreaking tale,” she said she “felt dehumanised”.
“It’s the patronising assumption that … older women will be thrilled by some random stranger giving them flowers.”
The woman is clearly still treated as a human being, even if not given enough respect. If the filmer did something like forcefully moving her body and limbs for posing to achieve dramatic effect, or deliberately humiliated her with insulting commentary, you may have a point that it's "dehumanizing", but he didn't go that far.
> to address or portray (someone) in a way that obscures or demeans that person's humanity or individuality
It would have been such a sinister show if they never revealed it was a joke and never got permission to distribute the video.
Too many people now want to engage in these fake and superficial acts of "kindness", and it's messing up general day-to-day behavior and values.
Yeah, right. Something smells.
How upset we get when someone is "profiting"
How things we don't like or understand become something that automatically has a negative reaction.
Really, what is our role in this situation? We're the flowers.
The whole thing is a dumb stunt. But there is no harm and no reward for bad behaviour.
If you're worried about privacy, give Google or the NSA some attention. If you don't want to be bothered by people, avoid people.
This whole story seems like it's purpose made for people to argue over. And "news" like that is just a huge waste of time and actively distracts from our societies real issues.
Security footage isn't generally used to advertise a product or person.
There's a rule of thumb I hope doesn't catch on.
> That it should be illegal to speak to people in public?
The error here has nothing to do with people speaking to one another in public. Of all the strawmen you could choose for why people find fault with this behavior, that's the least realistic.
> The reason this act breaks a moral boundary is that it subverts a principle of "ends" [1]. A genuine random act of kindness cannot occur if it's being filmed. Filming the act turns it into a virtue display. It also turns the subject into an object of utility, a means and not and end in themself.
> She was actually being kind to him by doing him a favor, and then he basically ran away and stuck her with them. That's not kind at all, it's pushy and exploitative. As someone who doesn't usually like to accept gifts from random strangers, I'd be really put off and uncomfortable; and that's before taking into consideration the fact that it was filmed and put online for people to gawk at.
Another low for the guardian, once a newspaper, now a propaganda/outrage rag of no news value whatsoever. Don't fall for the clickbait, and do yourself a favor: don't click on guardian links. It's all garbage.
Perhaps being told that some of his acts of not appreciated and are in fact causing people discomfort will cause him to be more thoughtful and maybe go a different path.
The women in the article is seemly experiencing something of Streisand effect and instead of being a no name in mildly viral tik-tok video is now in an international news article. Maybe she is passionate about the issue and the notoriety is a side-effect she is willing to bear, maybe she likes the attention.
I think this entire problem would go away if all participants were just ignored.
One thing this article does demonstrate is just as you should be suspicious of rich pastors, convincing you to give to the lord, you should also be wary of people who are making money spreading "random acts of kindness" and an online persona is perhaps entirely different then the a real persons morals. I don't know if that is the case with the creator in the video, but I that is my current exception with all people similar to this.
Overall my takeaway from this article is: Annoying young person annoys grouchy old person, a tale as old as time.
Ignoring people? In this attention economy?!