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I'm not arguing that it's good, only that it's not as exploitative as the parent made it to be.

Also, until now, the most questionable thing would be the 100 days in a circle one, and the reward is $500k. I think most people, even if not in dire need, would happily go and do that. Here in the comments you already see examples of that.

And, most importantly, I don't see the "coercion" anywhere. Most of the people participating are subscribers to him, he's not just searching for poor people out of the street.

The argument is that money is coercive.

Following that line of argument, every interaction with money involved is coercive. There must be something else that defines whether there is coercion or not.

Is mrbeast worse than a McJob at fast food?

I’m currently doing tech support for mr cooks phone company and the abuse I’ve endured this week has been insane.

The premise is mostly the same as a lot of game shows. You don't see rich people showing up to get on game shows. From glimpses I've seen of Japanese game shows, Mr Beast's takes a lot from them with the ridiculousness and over the top entertainment factor, the money involved is much more.

Another counterpoint is that they do good as well - 30+ million pounds of trash cleaned out the ocean with TeamSeas. Go see the one where they take over a bank in his hometown, no game show antics just handing out money in an entertaining way.

The problematic part is that Mr Beast offers little if any critical reflection about the systems that create wealth inequality, pollution, etc. and even less regarding his own role as a perceived philanthropist within that context.

It's not that it's inherently morally wrong to clean up the ocean, open a free bank or handing someone 500k for staying 100 days in a 100ft circle. It's the manifest obliviousness of not challenging the system and the premises that allow him to make his videos that's - industries generating single-use plastics, people not able to take out a mortgage,... - which is the issue.

His videos aren't in any way a social commentary. They are nothing more then entertainment, and they don't pretend to be anything else. That's what makes all of this morally questionable.

> Mr Beast offers little if any critical reflection about the systems that create wealth inequality

Why should he?

For the exact same reason why we teach little kids to throw their litter in the garbage bin instead of the ground, and hope that it will stick into adulthood: a range of values and ideas that display a due sense of caring and compassion.

> and hope that it will stick into adulthood

Littering is often a criminal offense in many places and/or you have to pay a fine so you are comparing apples and oranges here.

People don't want a world utterly suffused with politics. You are doing your movement harm by expecting it.

I didn't know parenting was suffused by politics, but apparently here we are.

Everyone should, but he seems to be particularly in a position to do so.

> Everyone should,

Why though?

Exactly - we all don't have to be doing that all the time. And MrBeast does not choose random people or even poor people for these challenges, he chooses only his own subscribers - people who are already interested in this content and presumably watch it regularly and are delighted to be in one of the videos.

> You don't see rich people showing up to get on game shows.

You do, but on different ones. On shows that make them look good.

How can it be unethical if the person knows full well what's coming with no surprises, and the person judged that it was in their best interest to do it? That'd be saying it's unethical to provide someone with a benefit-cost > 0 which they've agreed to, and I don't see why that should be true.

I'd agree it's unethical only if their cognition was compromised (meaning he wasn't capable of analyzing the costs and benefits and deciding if it was in his interest) or if there were surprises hidden (meaning he didn't really agree to what happened) or if it's a particular type of decision where people are known to not be capable of factoring in long-term costs properly into their decision making. But we don't know if any of this is true, do we?

An argument I would be sympathetic to would be that it's unethical not because of what happened to the subject in particular (after all, he net benefited if the above assumptions are met), but because of the negative flow-on impacts to culture and the social fabric.

There used to be a website where someone gave homeless people money to fight each other. Perhaps it still exists. Is that ethical?

I thought of bumfights when writing this, and decided that no, it's not ethical, because homeless people often suffer from mental illnesses which violates one of the assumptions that I laid out.

What if the person isn't mentally ill, but doesn't reliably have enough to eat to survive adequately, and can get it by fighting for the entertainment of others (who do have plenty to eat, and more to spare).

Is that ethical, because it's a rational cost-benefit analysis?

There are few people in the US who don't have enough to eat to fuel their bodies, but in other countries there are more. I am not trying to describe the particular people in "bumfights", who I don't know, but hypothetically working the boundaries of this analysis.

I also don't in fact think that people can be divided, in binary fashion, into those who are "rational" and "not rational".

It seems pretty clear to me that enticing desperate people to fight each other, for the entertainment of others who find their desperation emotionally engaging, and for the profit of the promoters -- is unkind and disrespectful and an attack on their dignity. Even if they are not "mentally ill." It seems hard to argue otherwise. Is it how you would treat a relative or friend? To hypothetically say, well, sure it's unkind and disrespectful and an assault on their dignity, and I wouldn't do it to someone I loved, but it's not unethical to do to make a buck or a laugh -- what is the point of "ethics", then, exactly?

> To hypothetically say, well, sure it's unkind and disrespectful and an assault on their dignity, but it's not unethical to do to make a buck or a laugh -- what is the point of "ethics", then, exactly?

But is it unkind? You're giving them a benefit (+$) and taking a cost (-dignity), and they've calculated that $ > dignity. Assuming their calculation was accurate, aren't you actually being kind? You are increasing their utility.

> I also don't in fact think that people can be divided, in binary fashion, into those who are "rational" and "not rational".

Yes, there isn't a clear dividing line between those who are capable of rationally calculating what's in their true best interest, and those who aren't. A dose of pragmatism is obviously needed. Homeless people are statistically much more likely to suffer from a mental illness which erodes their ability to rationally calculate costs and benefits more than others.

Would you offer that deal to a family member or close friend in need of money? Why not?

Definitely not, it would make me sad to subject them to that. I'd also feel pretty bad if I got them them to clean my house for money if they were in need. But that doesn't mean it's unethical, does it?

You wouldn't consider it either unkind or unethical to arrange for a needy family member to fight for money, you just wouldn't do it becuase it would make you sad? It doesn't seem an unkind thing to do, really?

But, yes, I think intentionally subjecting strangers to something that you wouldn't subject your loved ones to because it would make you sad, is at least a signal that something is likely to be unethical.

In general, I'd say profiting off of desperate people trading their dignity for money is probably unethical. Yes, I'm aware this can apply to other parts of society.

Is your opinion basically that there is no such thing as unethical employment of someone? That if someone is of sound mind, any employment conditions are always ethnical, there is basically no way for an employer to behave unethically with regard to their employees? No matter how degrading, how awful their experience is, it isn't actually possible to consider any such conditions unethical, because the desperate employee chose to engage in the employment?

> No matter how degrading, how awful their experience is

Correct, as long as my above assumptions are not violated. That is, no surprises post-contract signing, and so on[1].

Your actions are a net benefit to them. It can't be unethical to benefit someone, unless we're operating under a non-utilitarian moral framework.

I'd argue it's unethical to not provide them that terrible job, if the only alternative is for you to not engage with them whatsoever. You are leaving them worse off by choosing this so-called moral high ground. Society may pat you on the back for your upstanding choice, but you are leaving them worse off, so I believe it to be immoral to not provide them that job.

[1] In practice, this is fraught because of the power asymmetry -- the employer can easily introduce new conditions post-signing. But I'm assuming that the employer doesn't abuse that asymmetry. It's also fraught because people aren't rational creatures that are capable of perfectly evaluating costs and benefits. So we'd have to evaluate each situation on a case by case basis.

> You wouldn't consider it either unkind or unethical to arrange for a needy family member to fight for money

I would consider it less unethical to do that, compared to withholding the money. There's a rank order here. It's more ethical to pay them to fight (under my above assumptions) than it is to withhold the money, because you are maximizing their utility by doing so, i.e. you're helping them the most by doing that, relative to that alternative.

Of course it would be maximally good to just give them the money with no strings attached. But that doesn't imply that it's unethical to pay them to fight.

> make you sad, is at least a signal

I am highly skeptical of such evolved responses that are there because of kin selection, reciprocal altruisim, etc. If I feel bad, it means that I'm doing something that's correlated with a reduction in genetic fitness, that's it. Moral certainty based on feelings has motivated genocides, anti-sodomy laws and many other terrible things.

> I'd argue it's unethical to not provide them that terrible job,

Then why would it make you sad to provide a family member or loved one with that terrible job, say fighting homeless people for the entertainment of those who find their pathos entertaining? Why wouldn't you feel great, providing them with that job that is a net benefit to them? I mean, maybe not as good as if you were able to just give them a gift, but there's no reason to feel sad, right, you've given them a net gain, setting them up to fight homeless people on youtube?

I think if everyone acted according to your principles, there would be a net gain in human misery. Speaking of utilitarian frameworks. Human dignity benefits from, well, valuing human dignity and feeling a responsibility for it.

But ok, this conversation is going as far as it's going to.

If I had realized you thought it was literally impossible for any employer to behave unethically toward an employee, I wouldn't have gone this far with it. Now I'm curious if you are the same Ayn Randian I had a similar conversation with a few weeks ago, looking through my history... nope, that was someone else! It is very convenient for those who profit from taking advantage of desperate people to believe it is literally impossible for this to be unethical; less convenient for the desperate people being taken advantage of.

  "Then why would it make you sad to provide a family member or loved one with that terrible job"

It would also make me feel extremely sad to not give them money with no strings attached if they're in need. What's the point? Are you saying that it's unethical to not give your money to family?

If they needed the money, I would feel better getting them to fight for it (because after all, that's better than them dying of cancer or whatever the money is for!) than I would not giving them the money, but I'd feel bad in both situations, because all I'd want to do is maximally help them, and either of these options isn't that.

  "I think if everyone acted according to your principles, there would be a net gain in human misery."

That's funny because I thought the same about your views. There are people on the left that want to shut down trade with China or Bangladesh because they view low wages as exploitative. They would condemn these people to the outcome of poverty and death because of their ad hoc ethical rules that have no grounding in outcomes.

  "If I had realized you thought it was literally impossible for any employer to behave unethically toward an employee"

I said the opposite. Look at my list of assumptions. In those assumptions are all the typical violations of the employee to employer power dynamic, such as unexpected surprises after the contract is signed (say, unexpected occupational hazard, whatever), deceptive fine print in the contract, pressure tactics to get them to agree to something they don't want to, and so on. That's hardly a Randian perspective. Rand thinks none of these things are possible because people are rational creatures that will never agree to something that isn't in their best interest.

It'd be unethical not to offer them the fight. That would mean they would continue to starve. If I had the choice between fighting and starving I'd probably choose fight, and if a do gooder came into the ring as it was about to begin and said "no no no, this is unethical" I'd be pissed because their actions are condemning me to starve.

No, because you're specifically targeting people who are in need, and fights carry a very high risk of damage.

Unless you want to consider 99% of paid work as unethical, monetary need cannot be the only factor in considering whether something is ethical or not.

Is boxing ethical? People make choices because they believe it will make their life better. If the homeless people think the money is worth the fight that means the website is literally making their life better and therefore ethical.

> How can it be unethical if the person knows full well what's coming with no surprises, and the person judged that it was in their best interest to do it? That'd be saying it's unethical to provide someone with a benefit-cost > 0 which they've agreed to, and I don't see why that should be true.

Because it's inherently degrading and dehumanizing. Ethics is more than just benefit vs cost.

It shouldn't be because then people can use their disgust response to moralize about other people's behavior, and that's historically done a lot of real-world harm. There needs to be an actual moral justification instead of ad hoc assertions. But I get that there's a lot of scope for different views under the banner of meta-ethics.

> How can it be unethical if the person knows full well what's coming with no surprises, and the person judged that it was in their best interest to do it? That'd be saying it's unethical to provide someone with a benefit-cost > 0 which they've agreed to, and I don't see why that should be true.

It's unethical to ask people to perform an action which you know they would never agree to if it wasn't for an imbalance of power or financial pressure/incentives.

Otherwise you could say why did Harvey Weinstein get prosecuted. When he asked women to suck him off and they did it voluntarily then it's not wrong is it? I mean they could have just walked away and not get hired for his next film.

  "It's unethical to ask people to perform an action which you know they would never agree to if it wasn't for an imbalance of power or financial pressure/incentives."

Under utilitarianism you need to compare it to the alternative. You can't say X is immoral if Y is the alternative and Y is worse than X. In many cases, X=terrible job, Y=nothing. Otherwise you're actively opposing someone's wellbeing. This is the fatal problem with these ad hoc ethical rules that aren't grounded in actual outcomes.

Consider the reductio ad absurdum. Almost everyone has a job because of financial pressures. Even upper middle class people feel pressure to secure themselves for old age and unforeseen circumstances. Is almost every job unethical? If yes, then you're saying that our species functioning is unethical, which is an absurdity. If no, then you don't believe it yourself.

  "Harvey Weinstein"

No because he violated two of the assumptions I laid out, making it unethical under utilitarianism. He often introduced it as a surprise after the business relationship started. And he engaged in what was effectively high pressure sales tactics which jeopardizes the ability for the person to decide whether it's truly in their best interests (this would be a form of compromised cognition, similar to mentally ill homeless people in the Bumfights example).

A third thing: the attempts themselves were a sort of menacing assault which subtracted utility from the person, which they didn't agree to be subjected to upfront.

I think the comparison with Squid Game is apt. Of course he's not killing anyone, it's all voluntary, legal, and far more benign than what the Frontman in Squid Game does, but in essence it's still using extreme monetary reward to tempt people to subject themselves to treatment they wouldn't otherwise consider.

Then again, if you keep scaling down like that, in what way is regular work any better?