The video itself was quite off-putting when I first saw it. He didn't even just kindly offer her flowers. He _tricked_ her into taking them by making it sound like he just wanted her to hold them for him. 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.
It's funny how these videos say they're intended to spread love and encourage random acts of kindness, but the actual effect of them is decreasing trust in strangers (that they might be filming us for their tiktok). This makes me not trust anyone that goes up to me in the street.
So much of the content I see now on TikTok and other apps is totally staged, and quite often poorly staged at that. It would be interesting to know who funds the production of many of the videos, because there's obviously an advertising scheme or some sort of moneymaking ploy behind a lot of it.
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.
>but there's never disclaimer that the video is staged or a skit.
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.
A huge swath of the population thinks life is a TV show. Not consciously, but in the back of their mind because they have spent so much time living through entertainment.
"To the Capital building...this should be fun!!" Hahaha....
"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" - I'm genuinely curious, you'd include much of the war footage that's come out of Ukraine recently? I've no doubt a certain amount of it is "stage managed" and carefully edited to come across on TV as strikingly as possible, but to imply that most of it (including secret-filmed footage of POWs being marched off and later shots of their bodies etc.) is staged for the explicit purpose of being shown is a big claim.
(Technically your initial claim is almost tautological, but I assume you meant "shown for purposes other to genuinely convey information about the real world")
I feel like you're trying to add something to it that's not there. I never claimed that everything is fake that is out there, only that I assume it is until verified later. I don't consume social media, and the only time I see stuff is when people directly link to it. However, my personal position is that if it is coming out on social media first, in my mind it absolutely 100% gets flagged as potentially fake/needs verification. And if you think the Ukraine content isn't being PR managed by either side, then I think maybe you're their target audience.
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.
> 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)
> 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"!
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!
You can make the case that it's not an "act of kindness" when your motive is self promotion and gratification.
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 ?
I recall a few years back, I was going to visit someone, and bought flowers.
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 difference is that you didn't use the opportunity to promote your brand on social media, nor did you trick her into holding the flowers for you just to disappear. I think the reaction would have been completely different if he did actually present those as a gift.
> 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"
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.
“Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. When you give to someone in need, don’t do as the hypocrites do—blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you."
> Only if you're going into the whole "every act is selfish" kind of thing.
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".
> 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.
Okay but that goes way beyond the general-case statement I was responding to.
My wife and I, individually, and on various occasions over the years, have paid for random strangers' shopping.
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.
I'll never forget the kindness a stranger showed me at Logan airport the day before Thanksgiving. I was already cutting it kind of close to departure time and my boyfriend had gone ahead to board so I figured I had just enough time to duck into one of the shops to get a bottle of water for the flight. It wasn't until the clerk rang me up that I realized my wallet was in the bag my boyfriend had taken onto the plane for me! A remember frantically digging around in my purse for loose change (talk about desperation!) and even though I can usually bank on my purse having plenty of change floating around at the bottom airport water is expensive AF! I don't know why I didn't just walk away, panic of the moment, I guess? But finally a lovely woman behind me saved me from my desperate coin hunting when she stuck her arm out next to me with $5 in her hand and said "Happy Thanksgiving!" The awkwardness of not being able to pay was pretty uncomfortable but she really, truly, made my day!
Some supermarkets have two output buffers after a checker, seems easy to offer to pay just as the person in front finishes or to wait around a little to pay for the next person.
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.
My wife and I donate cash to the local food bank. Cash is actually more useful to them than food donations. Occasionally they have particular drives, generally for laundry and cleaning supplies. Those we buy outright.
Yeah - it would be strange if someone offered to pay for my groceries, just because I was wearing old jeans looking depressed and worried because of the price of bitcoin.
But I think it's a good thing to do if you "hit" the correct "target".
I don't need strangers to pay for my groceries either, but I think if they did (assuming it wasn't for a social media stunt) I'd accept it gracefully and try to pay it forward somehow. Maybe offer to pay for the next person, or use the money I'd have spent to buy those prepared bags for food pantries some shops offer.
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
For my wife and I, we usually keep it to situations where it's needed, we don't just offer any body, just because. My wife being a feminist and a mother will always "target" to help the single/young mothers, or older ladies etc.
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.
Yeah this I go to the market in a hoodie and joggers, - looking as rough as hell. But if somebody paid for my groceries and was filming it all without my permission I'd be mad as hell. Aside from not needing others to pay for my groceries, it's an invasion of privacy.
It's almost always that I'm behind them at the checkout/cashier.
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.
When I was young, and broke, an old guy bought my lunch one day when I was traveling. He left before I even got the bill, but the waitress told me he was a regular, and he left a simple note. And the note said something along the lines of "I was once young like you, and I know how scarce money can be when you are young. I hope that when you are older, that won't be a problem for you, and that you will pass along the favor"
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.
It's interesting how you're complaining about so much content being staged. I much prefer that this type of content is staged. The alternative appears to be harassing random strangers like the case in the article.
With staged content the only victim is the duped audience who can always just not watch TikTok.
I like watching dash cam videos. I would hate to see a staged one, and would complain loudly about it not being real. That doesn't mean I want more accidents and near-accidents, it means anyone faking a dash cam video should not submit anything at all.
I don't think the videos being staged is the issue, it's that they are staged without disclosure. We want to be entertained, but not lied to. A sitcom or summer blockbuster is a lie too, but we're all pretty clear about that going in. I think reality TV and cable news regularly crosses that line though.
> A British YouTuber named Jay Swingler performed a dangerous stunt about a year ago. He placed a plastic bag with a breathing tube over his head, then “glued” his head to the inside of a microwave oven with expanding plaster. The plaster set, and Swingler couldn’t get his head out of the microwave. It took a team of paramedics to set him free.
People get pushed to the brink in desperation after years of posting but not being noticed... It's tragic, but to be honest, a lot of the people that end up dying in an accident for doing dumb things would possibly be even more destructive if they succeeded each time.
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.
I kind of agree. Stupid people doing dangerous things for "likes" usually deserve what they get, but it's not as if there aren't external costs they force on the rest of us for their idiocy. The 911 dispatcher whose line is tied up, the paramedic who has to scrape some dumb kid off the sidewalk, the doctors who'll do their best to save whatever's left, or any innocent bystanders caught up in the mess these people make. It's certainly behavior we'd be better off discouraging.
If you're implying social Darwinism being an expected natural consequence, you may want to research the history and abuses of the idea before accepting it and throwing it around so glibly.
Not even close to the same thing. Someone doing something to themselves that puts themselves in mortal danger isn't anywhere on the same level as wanting to eliminate an entire group of people based on some arbitrary attribute.
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.
People who celebrate the deaths of others due to their lack of perceived intelligence is absolutely an example of natural selection being applied to an inappropriate, scientifically devoid situation.
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.
Couldn't even tell you what social Darwinism is. My comment was not political in nature, I was merely referring to the concept of natural selection in a literal sense.
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.
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 :)
A QR code carrying a universally standardized and unskippable instruction to "blur whoever wears it" should suffice. "Permission levels" could also be added so that for example I can choose to be filmed/photographed only by family and/or friends but not strangers. It doesn't seem out of reach with current technology.
> It would be interesting to know who funds the production of many of the videos, because there's obviously an advertising scheme or some sort of moneymaking ploy behind a lot of it.
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.
That's the problem... Advertisers seeking easily "malleable" actors to shill their products... People who they can also underpay and over-contract. Social media is a gold mine for exploiting people who need opportunity... Especially young people.
They're unionizing Starbucks, but it might be wiser/better to unionize social media creators before it's too late.
William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition revolves around the protagonist's search for the origins of "the footage", a series of anonymous, artistic clips posted on the internet.
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.
Give me a good example, and I'll give you an example in that instance where you're wrong. If sites are not currently contaminated by fake and staged content, I guarantee you they soon will be.
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.
> 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.
> Hacker News is almost entirely influencer marketing
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.
I have never been on TikTok or Instagram. I don't have an account on Reddit or Facebook and hardly visit them unless it's someone referring me to a post. If you run an adblocker you don't see ads 99% of the time. You can visit numerous news sites and other journals without seeing anything but the quality content. You can even view YouTube without seeing ads or clicking on garbage videos. It's not hard to avoid garbage on the net. No one is forcing you to participate in places where it's common.
Let's be honest though, they aren't intended to spread love and kindness, they are intended to get views. It's nothing more than a ruse to get views. If the creator was so inclined to spread love and kindness, he'd donate some of the millions he makes off these exploitive videos to charities.
I think true acts of kindness are difficult to achieve because something that you might find "kind", I might not, and vice versa. I think if you truly want to make people happy and do nice things for them you need to know them, their situation, what they're doing well with, what they're struggling with. Being tricked into holding random flowers wouldn't have made my day.
True acts of random kindness are rare only because most people aren't in need of random help that often. There is a wide range of things that would fall under the umbrella of 'just being polite' that are more expected social behavior than actual kindness.
And you can be kind to people that aren't in dire straights or in need.
Yeah, it's called sarcasm guys. Grandparent's question was rhetorical, as to say 'that seems out of keeping with a low budget tiktok producer'. Parent goes on to explain why anyone would conceivably have a spokesman. Sheesh.
when you make money by manipulation and lies you're gonna have to hire a spokesperson at some point to manage your web of lies. See politicians, institutions of the state, corporations, tiktokers, etc
Exactly. Actual kindness doesn't need a camera and takes into account what the recipient of your kindness actually needs. This was just some guy taking advantage of someone for internet points.
With the amount of beggars in cities, I already highly distrust anyone who comes up to me to speak to me. 99 out of 100 times it is someone who tries to somehow enrich themselves.
When I was poor and eating at the soup kitchen, I spent a lot of time with people that lived on the street. Most of them were decent people in a bad situation. Sure, a healthy dose of distrust is smart. But I think it's worth it to not totally distrust anyone who is that hard up.
Tricking you into taking flowers and then trying to charge for them is already a Whole Thing, too. Not that that makes what they did any better, but this specific behavior sets off "scam" alarm bells for me.
I mean they've been doing that in Paris for quite some time when you're walking with someone. 'What you don't want to buy roses for 50 euro? Is your girlfriend not worth it to you?'
Luckily my girlfriend told the guy to put his roses some place I may not mention here.
Haha, Paris was exactly what I was thinking of. "Pretty lady, flower for you! You want flower? Flower for you, pretty flower for a pretty lady," pressing the flower toward the woman as if trying to give it away for free, and then if she takes it, "that'll be [insane price for a flower]", hand out for payment, and resisting taking it back.
Your best policy in public in a major city is to internalize Tony Stark's strong aversion to being handed things.
It is almost as if forcing people who need professional psychiatric help out of the psychiatric clinics and putting them to their 'freedom' somehow has diametral effects on societal health.
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)).
The other day at the transit station there was a man sitting on a bench with a shopping cart of his stuff, having a loud argument with nobody in particular. Like shouting at the top of his lungs, for at least a half hour.
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.
You understand that most of these are examples of mental illness, right? It would be great if schizophrenic people would behave themselves, but kind of the whole deal is that they can't.
I think most people would consider drug addiction a mental illness. If not it often is being used as a coping mechanism for mental illness or something else. Being able to empathize with people who are struggling is exactly what OP was talking about.
And at what point do those people who made the choice to be drug addicts deplete the goodwill that is afforded to them?
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.
They choose to take drugs with widely-known addictive properties, so yes.
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.
Neither does it his. It is a problem for some areas to the point it will completely erode the empathy of people who have to live with it. Their stake is not an internet argument, but a daily reality to deal with.
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.
Are the only healthcare professionals you know in psych wards? Dark humor and "dehumanize"-ing patients is standard coping for nurses, doctors, and basically anyone else who deals with the physically and mentally ill. That doesn't mean that they don't have empathy for them and understand that there's a fundamental disconnect between societal norms and their behavior.
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?
Glancing over my comment again, I can see it appearing fairly heartless, if you have the archetypal image of a homeless guy who's laying at the side of the road in your head.
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.
Arguments of the form "So $MISREPRESENTATION_OF_STATED_OPINION" are disappointing to see here. I don't think you really think that the grandparent is suggesting that to be "more empathetic to people who beg for money" is to invite them to Thanksgiving or give them your bed.
Consider visiting Reddit, where discourse of the form "So $MISREPRESENTATION_OF_STATED_OPINION" is more accepted.
that's not what empathy means, you don't have to house someone to feel empathy for them. In this case, I'd say don't judge them so harshly because they're a product of a failing social system. They're the consequence of society's collective decisions and priorities.
Where I grew up it seemed like a lot of people who randomly struck up a conversation wanted to recruit you into a multi level marketing organization and another bunch who wanted to recruit you to their religion. Kind of depressing that it seemed few that just wanted to talk.
Even The Guardian couldn't help but link to the TikTok channel, point out when it was posted so you could find it easier, and post a screenshot of the video with the woman in it even though it's an article all about how she didn't want to be on camera. They're going to get tons of views!
'Journalists' dont' give a shit about anyone. Her concerns are mute, now they guardian gets to talk about the meta issue.
The tiktok was exploitative, the guardian article was likewise exploitative. They could have not linked to the channel and also just written a description of the tiktok.
Choices were may, all of them to exploit that women directly or indirectly by piling onto the hype.
My guess is you don't know this woman or even live on the same continent as her? This is a thread of 500 comments from strangers, more or less unanimously condemning the tiktok media culture that led to her abuse. It's possible most people here know more about the incident and how it affected her than what happened this week in Ukraine.
> Maree gave her consent to publish the video with this article
We don’t know what journalists feel or care about. We are not mind readers. For that matter, journalists described hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.
It's hard to understand the importance of keeping something invisible when we are attached to what is visible and directly in front of us.
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.
Tho, I would argue that linking content you talk about is good habit. If they write about content without linking full version of it, there should be strong reason for it.
> that's before taking into consideration the fact that it was filmed and put online for people to gawk at.
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...
I feel like having an open culture around charitable giving is important. If more people felt like they were participating in something when giving to charity, they'd probably donate more (not saying that applies to this video, just in general). I think you can recognize when someone's not being genuine, but I don't mind people talking about their generosity.
Spot on. The connection between these types of videos seems to be an inability to appreciate that a filmed encounter is ultimately inauthentic. I wonder if young people who have always had smart phones and perhaps have always been filmed by parents and friends live in a different reality a bit. They went to school probably guarding their “image” at all times from a cellphone video.
Thank god there were no cellphones during my high school goth phase.
Obviously the most exploitative thing is doing it for the clicks, but none of this has ever felt "sweet" or "positive" or whatever other guise they're presented as.
I wonder who finds this type of content genuinely appealing?
Eh I’d say you’re looking at the wrong culprit. More likely than not, the average person who mindlessly spends time on their phone. Next time you take public transportation, look around you to see what people do when bored - nearly everyone these days is on either TikTok, Reels, YouTube Shorts, or whatever nonsense Facebook calls their short algorithmic video.
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.
>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.
Agreed. Even if did appreciate the gesture, I wouldn't want to be filmed without consent, especially for the whole world to see. He should've given her opportunity to review he footage at the minimum.
Even with flowers, I would be mad, because them I'll have to take them home, put on a pot near the window, water them... (I don't like the idea of just throwing plants and flowers out in the trash).
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
In both of those cases, Just get in contact with the apt shelter and child protective services to make sure the idiots running the tiktok can't endanger anything else ever again.
It's happened enough to know I'm not into it. You don't know when they just genuinely want to do something nice or when they're expecting something in return. I've had someone hand me a flower and then ask for my number. It got kind of awkward. Other times they hand you something making it out to be a gift, but then when you hold it in your hand they actually expect money for it. A trick sales tactic. And being _really_ pessimistic (unfortunately also from experience), who knows where that object has been or what's in/on it. And now, of course, who knows if they're actually filming you for some cringe TikTok video (luckily this one has not happened to me).
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.
What a weird straw man; he did not hand her trash, he handed her flowers under the guise of doing him a quick favor, then ran off. I guess she could think of it as trash after he left and even if she did - you genuinely wouldn't think some random person handing you their trash is kind of a rude thing of them to do?
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.
Social Media has largely exposed the levels of narcissism embedded in a large number of human's psychological makeup , Selfies, clout chasing and virtue signalling are ever increasing forms of narcissism that really has destroyed the internet IMO
> Social Media has largely exposed the levels of narcissism embedded in a large number of human's psychological makeup
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.
it takes what is a useful social response (I had better be kind, so other people physically present don't shun me) into a twisted spectacle (I must show me being kind to as many people as possible and in the internet I have the means to do it)
Alternately we could look at Social Media as a defective product. I think it's a much better metaphor. The product has horrible consequences and side effects. It's a for profit making entity, creating a product that often causes people to get hurt or damaged. Like lawn darts.
Well I enjoyed Lawn Darts and disagree with the prohibition on them so if the desire would be to ban social media I would also disagree with it
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
>just because they caused harm does not make them defective, both lawn darts, and social media are working exactly as the manufacturer intended
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?
That depends on the type and scope of "negative externalities", and not all libertarian philosophies agree on the where to draw that line.
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 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
>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.
"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 post made me wonder what libertarians think about things like llcs and corporations - the legal shields they provide are a massive government subsidy.
Left-libertarians often think they shouldn't be A Thing, since they're extensions of state power and, besides, left-libertarians are more concerned with large concentrations of power per se than whether those concentrations happen to be called governments.
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.
Libertarians are not a hivemind. I mean, for starters, you'll have to clarify if you mean right-wing or left-wing libertarians.
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.
The difference between the two of them is that due to historical specifics, the social media companies have Section 230, which completely immunizes them from dealing with the consequences of any of their actions.
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.
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.
Given the clear editorial choices via moderation that the platforms have chosen to undertake I would be in favor of treating them like a newspaper of TV Station
Yup. The second you prioritize one piece of content over another by other than an automatic means like chronological order or votes you're not presenting user generated content any more, you're making editorial decisions.
The fact that we've tolerated this for so long is appalling.
Automatic perhaps, but still editorial in the decision making process.
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.
Sure it is. It's also inevitable. Every communications medium makes similar judgement calls, including broadcast television, which chooses which shows to air based on their content, and which news story to cover, based on their content. Given the scale of social media, curation is a necessity.
Civil courts deal with "defective" products, legislatures deal with harmful products. I had an ATC growing up, so many people died on them they outlawed the design - mainly because it was pretty easy to endo with the wrong tires. Interestingly, we still had one, and it wasn't illegal for me to operate, but you definitely couldn't buy another one legally.
I agree, I think the internet took all the trash content over. Reality Shows/MTV to Tick Tok. We really better filters trash content. Kind of the reason most people are here on HN.
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."
It's really a shame people turned virtue signaling into a dirty world that can't be used in civil discussion. It is a great descriptor for all sorts of human behavior in all sorts of contexts.
Practicing virtue in public, even if you don't intend it that way, is signaling virtue. What is strange is how in our society virtue has to be justified. Is it virtue signaling that people dislike, or being fake?
The signal it sends is that appearances and whatnot matter more than actual substances, that appearing to do something is more important than doing something.
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.
Perhaps we're working to different definitions of the term. To me, virtue signaling is signaling (i.e. making publicly known) a virtuous act. To me that seems like an unambiguously good thing: it is likely to inspire others to similar virtuous acts, creating a feedback loop of people encouraging others to engage in good behaviour. "I voted! You should get out and vote too" feels like an example of positive virtual signaling.
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 problem with public displays of virtue is that it comes off as seeking return value for the action. Virtuous acts should be done in quiet/secret and for the simple reason for it being virtuous. Seeking some other sort of value out of it (like social recognition, social credit, youtube views which end up with ad revenue) makes the act look dishonest. The act wasn't done because they were a nice person, the act was done because they were seeking to increase their own value.
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.
> it comes off as seeking return value for the action
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.
> 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 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.
> But the people in the soup kitchen see me serving the food. Anyone walking by might see me in the window.
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.
I actually erased the part you replied to, sorry. Primarily because I figured out the response to it myself!
> 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.
Might be better stated as "altruistic acts", but the primary reason is that the benefactor's anonymity preserves the dignity of the recipient. When done privately:
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 would alter that slightly: virtuous acts should be done whenever an opportunity arises. When we see particularly conspicuous acts of virtue, by which the practitioner benefits greatly, especially when the opportunity to avoid conspicuousness existed but was eschewed, we are right to suspect that the act would not have taken place in the absence of an audience, and thus actually signals a lack of virtue. (Because the virtuous act so regardless of audience, and personal benefit, and even at great personal risk or hardship).
I agree that folks need to have a discerning eye on this. There are several channels on YouTube where lawn care guys will mow an overgrown yard for free. Yes, they are filming it and hoping to drum up interest in their channel, but providing free lawn care is objectively a kind and expensive thing to do. In these cases, the amount of effort expended being actually kind makes it obvious it's not just some stage with props.
Absolutely, and I’d say your example prompts a further question: even if it is partially self serving, maybe it’s worth the price? If these YouTubers are are looking for subscribers but also do free lawn care and inspire others to do other free things for those who can’t do it themselves… do we really need to be so down on it?
> "I voted! You should get out and vote too" feels like an example of
positive virtual signalling.
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.
I think there's basically two different sorts of behaviour that could fit the description. One is doing something good while setting an example for others, and the other is being seen to do something good or virtuous in order to receive appreciation for it.
Virtue signalling is a term made up by a hard right libertarian propagandist writing for the spectator as a means of silencing progressive voices online. It’s a bullshit term for which we already had a perfectly good word: hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is insufficiently precise. It is possible to disingenuously engage in any particular activity. If you wish to describe a specific behavior, then a better descriptor is necessary. On top of that, not all virtue signaling is necessarily disingenuous.
And all terms are made up, and the political leanings of the person who supposedly coined the phrase is irrelevant to its applicability.
The act itself is also shallow, flowers are meant more of a symbolic gift; I give my wife flowers maybe to express love but if I just gave some random person flowers on the street without any further explanation then I have simply given that person a dead plant. If the guy gave the lady something of actual value or that served a need, or even just made statement as to the meaning of the flowers it could have changed the dynamic. Further it is customary to ask someone (especially someone you do not know well) to accept a gift and to explain why the gift was given; there is a very good reason for this.
I'm not religious but it reminds me of Matthew 6:5-6 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward. But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
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)
I was also reminded of Matthew 6, but I thought of the first 4 verses
“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."
It depends on the context and use of the video, and I really blame social media for driving this constant pressure to be relevant and generate content people will interact with.
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.
Kants moral philosophy (the categorical imperative) is deontological, which means it is based on the action (and only the action) itself.
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.
Thank you for clearing up my misconceptions. Is it fair to say Kants view mostly works when there is a universal answer that is not context dependent?
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?
The categorical imperative (kinda) ALWAYS works for a single action, thats the real power of it. No matter the situation, applying Kants reasoning to a possible action will always give you a definite answer - Moral or Immoral.
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."
Except the distinction is you were describing intent and not the event. The event can be framed as a factual description, but the intent cannot unless you somehow have unique insight into the person's mind. You can infer intent in this situation, but you can't really claim it as an objective fact.
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.
In other words, morality is relative to intent. I think the jury is still out on that.
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.
Agree that there is no clear-cut answer. That’s what makes ethics hard.
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.
Social media has certainly bastardized this, but I think healthy behavior is often dependent on your natural instincts. If your instinct is towards virtue signaling, then advertising your genuine random act of kindness for the clout is probably bad.
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 agree much more with your wording of the idea, though I still believe 100% it's possible to do something kind with the intention of filming it. If someone wants to donate a million dollars to me they're welcome to film it on a million cameras if they want
MrBeast. He's almost universally lauded for his generosity and good deeds which are mostly funded by ad revenue or sponsors and seemingly done specifically for YouTube clout.
My kids love Mr Beast. I have used the same word used here, “dehumanizing”, to describe him. The very premise places more value on money than people. It’s made for some great philosophical discussions with two ~10 year olds though.
Ugh. Everything about "MrBeast" I find marginally offensive. The way that he approaches the idea of unconditional charity is almost theatrical and smacks of sensationalism.
The flip side here is agreement on both sides, for me that is the moral question. Not that it was filmed, but that all parties should agreed to the filming.
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
Then I think we may differ on whether we consider consent/agreement a part of kindness. I don't think it's that simple. I think an act can be kind but be delivered in an incompatible way. Asking someone how they're feeling after a breakup can be genuinely kind IMO, even if you didn't realize that that's the last thing they want to think about and asking them caused them to have an emotional breakdown that they blame you for. At this point I'm disregarding the tiktok thing entirely; I would still consider the million dollar gift to anyone an incredibly kind gesture, even if filmed without prior planning/agreement.
What about this story that the thread is discussing? The woman in question did not appreciate being filmed, is this still an example of kindness? Not trying to argue here just understanding your thought process, because I agree with the poster you replied to.
I think the distinction comes from differing worldviews on moral behavior.
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).
I’ve really come to think of my moral framework as trying to maintain an Aristotle golden mean between Consequentialism and Deontology.
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.
From the description, the flowers weren't offered as a gift, but he asked her to hold them. And then disappeared. Just think of someone asking you told hold his stuff for a moment and then disappears. Now you have to care for something that's neither your's nor wanted? I'm tempted to call that obnoxious, not nice.
Words like "dehumanizing" and "trauma" have lost their meaning. I was listening to an NPR program a few weeks ago discussing the Uvalde massacre where the speakers described the Uvalde families as being "traumatized" while also describing themselves (the speakers) as being "traumatized" by the online political debates over gun rights. They very briefly caught themselves, and at one point of them briefly, self-consciously excused themselves (something like, "not [traumatized] like the Ulvalde families"). Yet they continued (I lost count how many times) using and relishing in the word as a descriptor for their experience of the debates.
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".
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.
Why not? I can exercise both because it makes me feel good and because it is good for my health. There is no contradiction. I think people can tie themselves in knots looking for the true cause or intent. I'm not sure it matters or even exists in any way that matters.
I disagree. If entertainment value can be extracted out of people doing good things, then we 100% should do that. The issue here is that the creator didn’t do a good thing. He should’ve offered the flowers outright and asked permission to post the video.
I sort of feel compelled to quote the Bible here, though I'm not religious.
"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
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.
#1 surprised me, in a good way. Propping someone up before they're in dire straits is a great thing to do for someone. Identifying the need might be a little harder, but digging someone out of a shallow hole is easier and less costly than digging them out of a deep hole, and I bet that person will have a much better time not having to be in that deeper hole in the first place.
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.
Joking aside, Something I find fascinating about ancient wisdom literature that has been in circulation for centuries - honed and refined generation after generation, is how succinctly key concepts are boiled down in ways that can be easily grasped/remembered. (In this case, avoiding conflict of interest/segregation of duties.)
1. Selection bias. There's a lot of stuff in the Bible that is total gibberish to modern ears.
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.
Going further it's in fact the very foundation of the morality of western civilization. It's little wonder why it's constantly under attack and diminished.
Western civilization existed long before the bible (the Greeks) and the predominant culture spread throughout western civilization (Roman) was non-Christian long before it was Christian.
This is an interesting passage. I fully support the message, that giving done in secret is more valuable than equivalent giving done for public acclaim, but for a believer, it seems like it leaves the same basic moral philosophical question open.
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…
No, no. You are going in the right direction in analysing the morality of such proclamation. The point is, you can a) give others and collect reward in terms of other's people perception/rewarding of you (what the Bible passage above suggests is bad), b) do the same because someone just convinced you you'll get a reward from .. someone important, worthy of respect/awe (what the passage suggests is good, though I'm sure there will be those who say it's just parabole for being humble in giving, which of course the text could say but somehow doesn't), c) for some another reason. We'll get to c) in a minute.
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.
Well, it’s not the only moral instruction in the Bible, to put it mildly.
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.
The way that CS Lewis puts this is essentially that if the reward becomes the motive, you're not going to get it:
> 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.
Your example isn't a threat because there is no external/conscious actor who is going to cause your body to grow weak and sick if you don't take care of it; it will just happen as a consequence of normal biological processes.
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.
‘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 …’
That you favor religion as a resource means your walk is orthogonal to any issues of faith I have. My call to serve as a pastor was hard to justify when I saw suffering. The utility of my faith just isn't a part of the calculus.
It’s hard for me to understand your POV. I empathize, but I can’t grok it.
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.
Everything in the Bible, including what Christians are supposed to be like, should be viewed through the lens of Jesus on the cross. The idea is that you are supposed to imitate Christ in your life for salvation which is reaching Heaven i.e glorifying God, the Father forever via achieving the Beatific vision.
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".
Is that last part really a Christian (in a wide sense) thing or just a Catholic thing? I definitely hear it at Catholic Mass but I have not experienced it at most protestant Eucharist ceremonies.
There may be some overlap in some denominations I'm not aware of, but as far as the Eucharist is concerned, it's largely only a Catholic thing. In Catholicism, the first Eucharist has a particular significance as Christ/the Spirit dwelling within you. In Protestantism, it's only an ordinance, so is only a representation/ritual/tradition. There is often a component of confessing sins privately before partaking though, but the "Lord's Supper" (as it's called by most protestant denominations) is not a means of grace or sacrament in most protestant denominations. By "means of grace", I mean that taking the Lord's Supper does not lead to salvation or impart God's grace or anything else. It's purely symbolic in probably 95% of Protestantism. In the other 5% of orthodox Protestantism, it's not just symbolic, but is not a means of salvation/grace. In Catholicism (to my understanding of not being Catholic but studying it in a protestant seminary), it is considered a means of grace and imparts some form or measure of grace for salvation.
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.
Great summary! It's not actually talked about much, and not even well understood by many Protestants themselves, but it actually is a sacrament in most major Protestant traditions I'm familiar with (Reformed[1], Lutheran[2], Anglican, Methodist[4]). Zwingli was the only major reformer I know of to take purely memorialist stance, while Luther, Calvin, and Wesley all professed some degree of presence (spritual presence or real presence) in the eucharist.
Some non-reformed baptists and non-denominationals are memorialist, but historically most protestant churches do consider it a sacrament.
Thanks for correcting me, I was completely off on that! I realized after your post that I was thinking of transubstantiation instead of sacrament/ordinance. I'm Baptist and both in the 1689 confession [1] and the baptist faith and message 2000 [2] it's considered an ordinance, so most southern baptist churches to my knowledge consider it an ordinance, even those that are reformed-leaning. There are also other non-mainline denominations, probably mostly non-reformed, where it's usually an ordinance, such as Pentecostalism.
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)
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.
No worries, it was something I actually had to research recently myself after seeing the results of a poll of users' beliefs on /r/reformed where people were asked about their own beliefs on eucharistic presence. I was raised methodist and attend a reformed (presby) church now, so I appreciate your perspective as as a Baptist as well! I don't exactly know the difference between an ordinance and sacrament (and the WCF seems to refer to it as both), so I'll check out those links for sure.
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.
I've never been to a protestant church where the message was that we were "worthy" of the cross. Everything has always been predicated on grace which is necessarily unmerited.
Yeah don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting that any somewhat mainstream protestant church emphasizes that its followers are worthy. I'm just wondering about literally that line being said before they eat the bread and drink the wine.
The theology of the eucharist/communion is definitely different in protestant churches.
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.
I remember wondering, when I first heard about altruism, whether I was actually an altruist. If I feel good when I do something good for someone, am I not just an egoist who's wired differently? True altruism would be going against what feels good, because I know it to be right.
Even then it's not true altruism because you're doing it because you know it to be right and you (selfishly?) want to be the kind of person who does the right thing.
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?
I think this is a classic philosophical problem. Unless you are a philosopher, though, I don't think it really matters all that much. The bottom line is that you are making a sacrifice for someone else, and that you aren't involving other people in it.
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.
I think you are an altruist if you feel good for sacrificing to helping others. That good feeling will motivate you to sacrifice to help others and sacrificing to help others is what an altruist is.
Weird metaphor, right? We're probably missing context for that one. My theory is that it boils down to "don't nickel and dime or be overly concerned with recording the amount of your charitable giving"
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 think the point is that if you focus too much on the reward, you lose focus on helping the person. It's not that it's bad to (want to) be rewarded for good deeds, it's bad when you end up making things worse because of it.
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.
Perhaps it only means, seek reward from heaven, not from people. Perhaps because the former would lead you into correct behavior while the latter will lead you inevitably astray.
Not clear the passage is about selfishness per-se at all.
And since presumably reward from heaven is the ultimate in delayed gratification.
Religious or not, I think one of the best philosophies on giving is Rambam's 8 levels of tzedakah. The highest is doing something to materially improve someone's condition, the absolute lowest is giving with a poor attitude. That he doesn't even rank "giving with the intention of getting something yourself" shows how far this is from any sort of good act.
> I sort of feel compelled to quote the Bible here, though I'm not religious.
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 grew up roundly rejecting religious teachings as a matter of course, mocking it on the grounds of fanciful belief in God/Hell/etc. As I've gotten older and started thinking more about how I want to live my life I've looked at the bible with new eyes, and no longer see any necessity to believe in god or the afterlife to realize the immense wisdom and beauty in Jesus's teachings.
Reminds me of when I was a child and my very religious Aunt and Uncles would slip me a 5 pound note without saying anything and without it being obvious to my parents :)
I had an aunt and uncle felt it was crass to give money as a gift, and that also it was bad luck to give someone a wallet or purse that was empty. I remember getting a wallet from them every year for my birthday from like the age of 5 through 15. But the deal was that the gift was the wallet, and any of the cash inside was immediately spendable and didn't need to be put in the bank like other birthday money.
The corresponding Qur'an verse (because they're all faces of the same coin):
"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
Right. I would say that these concepts are similar. But "because they're all faces of the same coin" seems to put forth that the two religions are of the same coin which I disagree with.
I think people down voted this thinking it’s pedantic, but there is a pretty significant distinction theologically between this Quran passage and the biblical description of how sins are forgiven. Although both books do encourage secret charity.
Well even though it says that, the concept of absolution (at least as far as I know, I am not religious anymore) does not exist in Islam. It's more as in doing good things would cancel out some of your sins, but not omit them completely.
It isn’t. A primary tenet of Christianity is to identify with Christ, mainly through suffering. Much the way a workout can be rewarding in and of itself (e.g. the runner’s high), the suffering of sacrifice can be its own reward if given in the correct mindset. What makes this possible for the Christian believer is the faith/knowledge that one’s sins have already _been_ absolved, so Heaven has already effectively been attained. So (now having a mindset of gratitude) the Christian believer is free to be charitable without the need for personal gain, for what more could the believer gain? Or what could he/she lose that would stain the gift already received?
>What makes this possible for the Christian believer is the faith/knowledge that one’s sins have already _been_ absolved, so Heaven has already effectively been attained
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
There are entire books of the New Testament devoted to assurance of salvation. I find this sentiment I described commonplace in my area of the world (Florida, US).
So what is the motivator for people to give charity if there is no reward from God? I would have thought there were some sort of reward for charity in Christianity.
> So what is the motivator for people to give charity if there is no reward from God?
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 wonder is love really a motivator? It's more of a reason, right?
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.
Human beings possess empathy and a desire to help the less fortunate entirely apart from religion or its rewards. From a purely utilitarian standpoint, one could argue that the reward of altruistic behavior within a social hierarchy is the strengthening of social bonds and likelihood of reciprocity, and this behavior has been seen in other primate species besides humans, suggesting it has an evolutionary benefit. Unfortunately, thousands of years of religious indoctrination has led many people to believe that humans are essentially amoral sociopaths without religion. But religion doesn't generate morality, ethics or virtue so much as codify them into a culturally specific framework.
That said, Jesus commanded his followers to practice charity often and directly linked doing so with gaining rewards in heaven.
Someone told me to be selfless //
But we are helpless without attention //
Wealthy people learn the lesson //
And never donate without the press there //
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?
Agree, the thing is that being raised catholic I only heard bible quotes from my teachers, priests and family when judging my moral and that is what raised my curiosity.
I am glad that filming someone here (Switzerland) without consent is not legal even in public. You can film in public but if a person is the center attention in your footage it becomes illegal and you need their consent especially if you publish it. Only exceptions are large public events where privacy can not be expected.
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.
How do you determine if someone is "the center of attention"? Could someone record ultra high res video using an ultra wide lens, then privately crop the video at will?
If you post the cropped video online then the "center of attention" is clear.
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 feel like you kinda have it backwards though, at least in regard to the parent comment.
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.
What happens if you're witnessing a police officer engaged in illegal acts (not uncommon in the states at least)? Must you obtain permission to record him?
> the video was “designed to spread love and compassion”
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.
The irony is it that shows the exact opposite of love and compassion. Self-aggrandizement and no regard for others, motivated only by the needs of self, and didn't even spend an extra second with her beyond what was required to execute this vapid stunt.
I don't want to tar an entire generation with the same brush, but I have noticed that younger people seem to be really taken in with these very shallow like-farming operations on YouTube and TikTok.
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.
This has also decreased the quality of content online in general since everything appears to be optimized for idiots with a 5-second attention span.
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!
It’s definitely a commercial generosity, but I think it differs.
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 really don't want to be that guy and wade into it with a "well, actually"."
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
- 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
I don't know how to explain it - if you make your living by being charitable, then the whole act of charity is somewhat lessened, no?
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'm sure he is making a profit off it but whatever good is happening is still getting done. He could be a famous YouTuber by playing pranks or video games and make millions too - is that better?
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 sure he is making a profit off it but whatever good is happening is still getting done.
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.
This is important because Mr Beast doesn't actually spend a lot of time self aggrandising. He approaches philanthropy similarly to how many ultra wealthy people do; giving in public, only he makes more from it.
He makes money off of it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that doesn’t make him a charity, imo.
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 $1.5 to strangers!” videos?
> I don't want to tar an entire generation with the same brush, but I have noticed that younger people seem to be really taken in with these very shallow like-farming operations on YouTube and TikTok.
I don't fault them. They're only responding the world that we, the older generation, are implicitly condoning. Fact is, our culture does not teach the benefits of generosity much, and the few instances we see are often highly public: "$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.
>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.
I don't think it's a generational thing, but a social media thing, and I think it looks like it's representative of "everybody" when in truth it's representative of the people who are more active on social media, which should be a small proportion of the general population.
Mr. Beast's driving motivation, as he's stated many times in interviews, is to make the best YouTube videos he can. He spends millions on his videos these days, all in an effort to outdo the previous one and provide the best content he can. So while he certainly does give away money in some of his videos, he films it in order to make money while doing it. I don't doubt that he's some level of generous, but his motivations are not solely benevolent.
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.
Mr Beast is a game show host. He’s not giving away his own money yet everything is framed as the giant act of generosity on his part. He’s giving away money much like Bob Barker gave away kitchen sets.
YouTube has advertising, as his videos have sponsorship. His audience is like double the level of an episode of Friends at its peak, so I guess the slots are worth a lot.
Yeah to me he seems genuinely generous. Obviously there is a part of it being done to attract more viewers (Otherwise he could simply not upload the video at all) but from my, granted limited, experience of his videos a lot of the money he makes goes in to making (I.e. donating more) new videos. Very different from getting millions of TikTok views for the price of a flower bouquet.
Why are those questions the end all be all of the discussion? Many good things are done in the world that have a variety of motivations. He could get views in a variety of ways but the fact that he's doing it by helping people shouldn't be dismissed just because he wouldn't spend millions of dollars with no one watching.
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.
>> 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.
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 thought media releases were required for image rights before video could be commercialized?
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.
The consent issue is even worse with live streaming available on many platforms. It is impossible for people captured in live streams to provide consent until after the content has been broadcast. You can make the argument for fair use in public spaces but once the "host" starts to interact with people, they are forcing people to be participants in their video without consent.
Public spaces like malls require a permit/location release for a commercial shoot on the property, and social media is increasingly commercial. I would be surprised if there were no lawsuits to this effect yet.
I don't think there's much case for a lawsuit. The mall has a right to kick you out for doing so but once it's done there's not much legal recourse in the U.S.
In the US you'd need permission to film the location, and without a release you could be stopped from using the video commercially (social media can count as commercial use if the uploader profits from views)
This can cover public places too, some localities require a permit to film a public place for commercial use.
Some courts have ruled requiring permits and fees for commercial filming constitute 1st amendment violations because they are content-based restrictions on free speech.
Yeah it's definitely questionable... but banning someone using your images commercially feels right to me, especially in the context of this kind of exploitation. It isn't as blatant as creepshots, but it feels abusive.
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.
I think the issue with getting a release is it shields you from litigation. It doesn't necessarily mean you'd lose the litigation if you didn't get the release, but a business is not going to want to take the risk they'd have litigation hanging over their head preventing the exploitation of the intellectual property asset.
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.
I think the intent should matter, but how to capture this in the letter of the law is the question.
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.
I suppose if you could get anyone like this woman involved as a witness to testify that they will be less likely to be a patron of the business due to behavior like this you could claim damages that way.
IANAL but similarly if someone steals your bicycle/car/camera while you’re not using it and then brings it back in pristine condition, what damages would you 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.
> IANAL but similarly if someone steals your bicycle/car/camera while you’re not using it and then brings it back in pristine condition, what damages would you claim?
But that's ... a crime. Generally you can't sue for damages after a crime unless you can claim damages.
It’s not necessarily illegal (criminal) it’s the potential damages for the civil offense (using her likeness without her consent causing untold losses to her).
Stupid hidden camera videos have been viral on YouTube for more than a decade, and YouTube pays out (a lot?) more for views. If no lawyer has milked this angle yet, I highly doubt it’s profitable.
>I thought media releases were required for image rights before video could be commercialized?
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.
Media releases are really only needed for advertisements. Commercially exploiting a likeness means more than just the video being sold or making money in the US and most western countries. There would need to be an association with a product or brand and the likeness, and it isn’t always clear when this is met
"It’s the patronising assumption that … older women will be thrilled by some random stranger giving them flowers."
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.
Years ago I was walking with my wife and parents along a path/boardwalk across a marsh to the beach on Cape Cod, MA. At the top of the platform where the wooden stairs went up the dune and onto the beach there were three people standing, one holding a sun shade. We just walked past them, but my Mom chatted them up briefly. Apparently they were doing a photo shoot for a J. Crew catalog, but I never would have guessed that since they just worked around us.
From the perspective of someone who has worked in the film industry: how a crew interacts with and treats bystanders is generally very telling about where they are on the "amateur-professional" scale.
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.
Last time I went hiking in Yosemite, and there were people who would hike all the way to a pretty spot (like, 4hr+ hike), change into a dress/suit/etc that they had packed, get some pictures taken, change back, and then presumably hike all the way back out.
I've actually become a bit of a dick in these situations since a trip to Italy, and every time I see a large camera in a public place I walk in front of it on purpose.
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.
There is a difference between the social.media selfie photographers and those people trying to take nice pictures of beautiful places. A big camera usually points at tue latter, phones and lighting and whatnot at the former.
The instagrammers and tiktokers have poisoned the well. If there is a human subject in the picture who is posing, it's now pretty safe to assume it's a social media narcissist, and I see no reason to step around or enable their behavior.
I get that they might be professionals with possibly a good amount of skill, but even then what gives them the right to make any tourist attraction a lot less enjoyable?
Museums are usually closed on Mondays, why not make "photographer Tuesday" a thing for instance?
He may or may not have lied. The lady could have been grateful at first and changed her mind in hindsight (e.g. after learning it was just a stunt).
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.
You assume that she would request the video taken down. But she might have realized that from her perspective, the damage is already done and she would gain nothing from the video being taken down. And would very much prefer him to get his share of unwanted attention as well (e.g. making it all the way to the hn frontpage)
I'm also guessing if she had made that request after it had already gotten millions of views, he'd have then made another video "why I took down my last video" or something to that effect, and disrespected her more. I certainly wouldn't risk Streisand effecting myself.
The honest thing to do would be to donate any profits to charity and make a real apology. Sharing profits would just encourage this type of distasteful behaviour that social media seems to be encouraging.
TikTok and Instagram are fascinating to me. I got on the latter less than a year ago and seem to have “used up” all the decent content. There are some content generators that still do a good job. But it’s loaded with a whole spectrum of operators who are simply trying to game the system.
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.
> I’ve never seen the signal to noise ratio anywhere this terrible for any other social media app.
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.
Every post about TikTok seems to have a very similar comment about how all the content is positive and it makes them feel great. And it's recommendations are perfect not like those western social media apps that are bad and negative. It's weird.
I looked into the comments posted on Video. It went viral because kids thought she cried and was lonely (something that many teens have in common, and with many comments, likes and shares, it went viral). The video title said, "I hope this made her day better". So basically, he tricked her, and the Video cuts at the right time with clever video editing, giving a false sense to the viewer that he was kind to her. It is about pumping numbers to get sponsorship while exploiting people's personal lives. The Video is still up and counting. He could have taken it down, but fame is more important than helping a fellow person who is his grandma's age.
The battle for privacy was lost a long time ago :(
I feel the wheel of consent is a wonderful tool for making sense of such situations. Who is actually giving and who is receiving? Did both parties agree to?
This is a form of douchebaggery, sure, but "dehumanised" seems a bit out of proportion here. I'd reconsider such phrases out of respect for all the people who have been genuinely dehumanised throughout history, if nothing else.
Well, it was the victim's choice of words to describe her own feelings. I wouldn't get too pedantic over it. Granted the level of victimization is relatively minor in this case but her feelings about it surely are real.
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.
> Well, it was the victim's choice of words to describe her own feelings.
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 : )
She's not being treated as a human, she's being used as a prop. There are many levels of dehumanizing, and treating your subjects like objects rather than people is a form of dehumanization.
I agreed until I read that news stories covering the video described her as an "elderly woman" and a "heartbreaking tale". She might be "senior" by definition, but it doesn't mean she would describe herself as "elderly".
That seems almost to be the crux of the issue. From the article:
> 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.
If this headline went: "Woman used for profit without consent", wouldn't you consider it a bit of a clickbait upon examining the actual content of the article? (Not technically untrue, I give you that)
Do you have quiet times where you collect yourself? Get lost in your own thoughts or read a book?
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.
>Do you have quiet times where you collect yourself? Get lost in your own thoughts or read a book?
>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.
Who are you to gatekeep whether a person felt dehumanized? Your attempt to gatekeep who can feel dehumanized has actually dehumanized this woman again.
The woman's reaction to feeling patronized is a valid one. But at the same time, I think we probably want to make room for this kind of content online.
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.
I wouldn't hold any flowers or anything really for any stranger in public. I've been to touristy places before and learned this lesson just by observation. High likelyhood some pressure style selling tactics would follow.
Really, putting things on the groud or some other higher surface to free your hands should be a basic human skill by now.
Very common in NYC. Someone on the street will ask you to "have something" or "check out something I'm giving away for free", acting as if it is a gift.
As you walk away with said thing, that person will accuse you of stealing and use it as means for a physical altercation.
I'm not sure why someone would do this just to start a physical altercation which seems more likely to get someone in trouble for seemingly no reason. What I've actually seen in NYC is people offering something like a "mix CD" and then ask you for money once you take it.
I see this often in Seattle, especially near the tourist attracting areas. I had a friend get sniped by it and they ended up arguing with the scammer for 20 minutes. Absolute waste of everybody’s energy, I’m surprised it’s not treated as a form of harassment by the authorities.
"Don't accept roses from strangers in Italy" was travel wisdom at least back as far as the mid-Oughts - the gambit there was a seeming well-wisher (often a child) handing a woman a rose, and then an accomplice badgering her male companion to pay for it and then resentfully yanking it back when he refused.
> “So far Harrison has only encountered gratitude for what he has done, however it is clear in this case someone is upset. He wholeheartedly apologises to Maree if she was offended by what he did and urges her to contact him privately so he can personally apologise. If she requests him to take down the video he will do that.”
I honestly dislike it so much that social media normalized filming or making pictures of random people (in the "they are the (sole) motive" way, not random crowds) and publishing it without their permission. Doesn't help that everyone always has an unsuspicious camera on them. :/
These people really see others as NPCs. No you are not the main protagonist. No we are not all just a lonely sad bunch living in your tale. And no we don't give a fuck who you are and what you have to offer.
If filming is done in public for the intent to be published, should there be a release form signed by any people that were filmed?
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.
If a person is the main subject of a picture, the photographer (or videographer) needa consent of the model to use that image or vidoe. Already under current law in most places. And most legitimate publishers ask for proof of consent when buying, before publishing such pictures. That social media firms don't care is not a big surprise.
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.
I can't speak for Australia, but in the United States, there is generally no right to privacy in a public area. The model consent forms are more of a CYA than a legal requirement. It's useful as evidence to dismiss charges rather than go through the hassle and expense of a full trial.
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.
> 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.
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.
You need consent, in the US (I recebtly read an article from an US blog about that and it is similar to the situation I know in Europe) if the oerson is the main subject. If you film a mall, no consent from those people in the shot needed. A demonstration, sake thing, no consent required.
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.
> You need consent, in the US (I recebtly read an article from an US blog about that and it is similar to the situation I know in Europe) if the oerson is the main subject.
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.
> "We're going to do what we already should be doing" doesn't get re-election votes the same way "I made a new law to address this" does
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 the Netherlands there's such a thing as "portretrecht" that gives people the right to not be depicted in public. Recording in public areas is usually allowed, but you can't just distribute your recordings centered around people without their consent or making them unrecognisable. More often than not, though, this law is only applied after the damage has already been done. Adding some hefty fines to these cases might convince the Tiktok/YouTube crowd to stay clear of the risk, though.
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.
It depends on the country. Filming someone in public where they are the subject of the video (or photo) without their consent is illegal in France. If this had been recorded in France instead of Australia, the rights of the subject (the woman) to her image would trump any right to film in a public place of a Tiktok creator.
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:
I also cringed, at the implication that she must have been having a bad day ... why? Because she was eating alone? Or visibly suffering in some way? Such a rude thing to "help" someone minding their own business.
If filming a "genuine" act of kindness isn't suspicious enough, the "hold this" move removes any benefit of the doubt.
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.
I fully agree with this woman. It is crazy how much support these invasive videos get online. The owner of the TikTok is not doing this to be kind. They are doing it for Content.
I hope we'll turn a page on this type of behavior sooner than later. Self made media is a relatively recent phenomena and the etiquette and decency hasn't yet had time to catch up with it all. I'm extremely turned off by forcing unconsenting individuals participate in pranks and other videos, and being made money on their behalf but seeing none of the benefits but unwanted attention.
Different audiences have different opinions. Most of the places you would have seen the video were places where it was being upvoted and liked. So everyone was positive and those that weren't were downvoted and drowned out. This is something that isn't positive so all the negative opinions are here and positive opinions will probably be drowned out.
If the woman hadn't spoke up, how would anyone have known the truth of what happened /her side of the story / the the immorality of the video creator's actions?
am i alone in finding tiktok to be the single most obnoxious pop culture phenomenon to exist ever?
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.
I’m puzzled why he didn’t take the video down while he acknowledged that Maree is upsets about it, instead asking that she contacts him and requests the video to be taken down.
The strange perspective and sense of entitlement of a successful TikTok influencer…
Why don’t these folks have to get a signed release to use footage of a model? I get that it’s a public place, seems like that still applies on the commercial interest. Couldn’t she seek damages for use of her image without her consent?
My loathing for TikTok knows no bounds. It's always the most vapid, narcissistic stuff, like a modern-day Tumblr but with sound. All of the uninformed bad takes of Twitter and Reddit, but as dance videos.
I feel for this women. It is not right to do something like that without her consent.
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?
AFAIK the "candid camera"-like TV shows would approach the people afterwards and ask for permission to use the footage. They probably did it only because otherwise they'd get sued into oblivion.
But there is a difference: There were only so many "street comedy" shows, but there is a way bigger pool of potential social media content creators.
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. :/
Those TV shows asked for written consent afterwards and didn't (usually, sure there are exceptions over all those years) air footage without it. Wouodn't kill influencers and the like to do same would it?
I do not want an act of kindness, the kindest thing a person could do is just to leave me the fuck alone, especially since most “acts of kindness” are done for some other motive these days such as viral Tiktoks.
I find a very stark contrast between this discussion and the one on dominos couple of days ago [0].
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.
And people donate to get parks built, largely for the plaque with their name on it.
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.
With the park and a plaque the ratio of good (park) to a I guess dopamine boost (plaque) is decidedly in favor of the good, orders of magnitude better. Let alone that the plaque is often in memory of someone close to the one making the donation.
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?
A lot of online content creators still think all of this is some legal grey area, although it's not. This perception will clear pretty quickly once a couple of them get heavily sued.
This is not the case with this video (as it was a stunt) but a larger issue here is how Tik Tok creators feel it is OK to film everyone. It may be legally allowed but ethically it is a very gray area. I spend some time on the platform and frequently see videos of random people just having a bad day and being filmed without their consent for the internet to laugh at. It's voyeurism.
This problem existed before Tik Tok but the platform makes it so insanely easy to go viral doing it.
This article confused me with the phrase, “TikTok creator Harrison Pawluk”. I looked it up and though I still don’t know who this guy is, I do know he did not write TikTok.
> 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”.
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.
> 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.
Receiving the flowers is one thing. Then having a video shared about it is another thing. And even beyond that, the second can also affect the perception on the first: maybe you thought it was something random at first, but then you realize it wasn't.
It's not like something changed magically for no reason because humans are weird.
I saw kids sneakily tacking a sticky note on a stranger's back a store a while ago. The person noticed (their stealth level was negative. It was embarrassingly obvious) and they awkwardly took it off and ran away.
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.
At one point my nihilistic consumeristic 20s got me in the hobby of "Lomography", which was basically using up ("shoot from the hip!) expensive film without care and seeing what kinds of random stuff turns up, if any at all.
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?)
It's also particularly annoying that the gift was a bouquet of flowers. If the woman wants to enjoy her gift, she needs to get a vase, go home ASAP, immediately put the flowers in water, and then keep taking care of them for the next several days. That's all fine if you're expecting it, but really annoying if it's an inconvenient time.
She articulates the exploitative nature of this sort of viral / influencer charity incredibly well. His actions, while I'm sure well-intentioned, are sexist, ageist and absolutely dehumanizing. I hope the article helps him and the millions who liked the video check their assumptions and offers a lesson in moral complexity and subjectivity.
There should be some easy way to report the content with proof that your the main subject of a video, and unless the creator proves concent the victim gets any and all proceeds plus a “publicity” fee.
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.
It seems like the video humanized her rather than dehumanized her. It showed her vulnerability. People don't like that.
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.
I guess it's fair to say that many people agree with Matthew 6, no?
"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."
Maybe that's part of it, but the other key thing here is that she was not in any way actually needy. He made a random person out to be a pathetic weepy loner, to an audience of millions.
What gets me about these "random acts of kindness" like someone giving away $100 after they ask for $5, etc. Is that most people actually believe they are good intentions. Let's see if they'd do that without a camera in front.
> He wholeheartedly apologises to Maree if she was offended by what he did and urges her to contact him privately so he can personally apologise. If she requests him to take down the video he will do that.
Ah, the classic “here, hold this” and walk away. Is it effective and even perhaps funny? Yeah. Is it kind? Not so much. Still, it’s a fairly benign prank in and of itself. Posting a video sure changes things though.
I can't tell whether TikTok is really that much worse than Instagram, Twitter, FB, MySpace, etc., or whether it's just the first major social platform to explode after I turned 30.
This was crass and an invasion of privacy but I think, "dehumanised" is a bridge too far. It isn't helpful to use maximalist rhetoric for every slight.
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.
I remember Candid Camera. I don't think the general comparison with Candid Camera really lines up. I'm not sure I can explain why exactly. Maybe there was just a different general attitude that people had about that sort of thing back then. Maybe people were given the opportunity to sign consent forms before the video was broadcast. Perhaps it was less of a problem because it had to be more carefully orchestrated; not everyone had a video recording device in their pocket.
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”.
The woman's response:
“It’s the patronising assumption that … older women will be thrilled by some random stranger giving them flowers.”
Seems totally fair to me. She now has to feel like she's an object of pity. And the original gesture was clearly self-serving. If you check out the rest of this guy's TikTok videos, they're all like this.
While I don't like what happened to her, we should call it for what it is and not more. The filmer was a jerk and she had to right to not be disturbed or filmed. "Dehumanised" is a bit too far.
"Turning someone into a prop" is a metaphorical statement. To conclude the act matches a dictionary definition of something is taking rhetoric way too seriously. Any act can be metaphorically described in a way that sounds like that but if you want to attach moral judgment you really ought to focus on original facts and not the projection onto a metaphor.
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.
It’s not that hard to just say that the idea of creating huge monetary incentives to harass, interrupt, or just distract people in public was a bad idea.
To me it just seems like a lighthearted prank which resulted in giving flowers to someone who appears in need of cheering up. It's something that could easily have been on any comedy TV show of the last 30 years. And I think there's always been a monetary incentive; Candid Camera first aired in 1948.
But I'd imagine that Candid Camera required "participants" to sign a release. Same for those "Funniest Home Videos" and even stuff like Borat (and Tom Green, etc. before him).
The filming may be candid, but to air, the subject must sign a waiver. Whether the subjects were compensated for agreeing to the airing of the footage is a different Q.
This comment is even more disgusting than the video and it's exactly the type of invasive public commentary she's speaking out against. Who are you to make an assessment about this woman's mental state? Or how attractive she is or isn't? Or how "enamored" she is or isn't? What makes you somehow more capable or better suited to assess how she's feeling and what she's thinking than she is herself? The absolute audacity of it is appalling.
Good for her for speaking up and shame on you for your misogynistic and conceited attempt to speak for her.
Why? Psychologist go out of their way to publicly diagnose people and it’s just considered analysis with the entire field being crock with almost no reproducibility for any claims. Is the truth in the comment above rubbing you the wrong way? There nothing misogynistic about it, this is an actual instance of “telling it how it is” and you can’t stand it because of how real it feels.
> She’s still enamored but her secondary abstractions are preventing her from truly accepting those feelings. Hence the cognitive dissonance and lash out.
I love how you think you can read other people's minds.
> Everyone knows the reason she’s up in arms about..
Sorry to break it to you but not everyone is making random assumptions about people they have never met in their real life.
Who's afraid? She was portrayed as a pathetic loner in front of tens of millions, simply for briefly holding flowers as a favor. You don't see why she's pissed off?
While I agree that this type of online content is questionable for the reasons said in this thread, the 'dehumanized' moniker is clearly sensational. No-one in that video has been dehumanized. This is rhetoric and nothing more. A person received an unsolicited gift and was filmed. If it was in a location where there is need of consent to be filmed by another party she can file a lawsuit. If it was in a location that doesn't require consent then them is the breaks and viewers of the video can make the conclusions of motives and ENDS for themselves.
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.
Nothing wrong with the video imo, if people think it's stupid that's just their opinion. When you're in public anything goes. The place this went wrong is that they lied to her about being filmed and didn't get her consent: but on the other hand, no one expects security camera operators to get consent either.
> 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.
And yet neither you nor the other commented has explained their actual stance, so idk how you can accuse me of constructing a strawman when nothing substantive was articulated in the first place.
Literally just read the top few comments. This isn't that hard mate:
> 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.
The way people ought to behave lies somewhere apart from the blatantly absurd comment of yours that I quoted upthread and the blatantly absurd straw man you attributed to me in reply.
There might be a case for calling this kind of video "commercial use" to help someone profit off of views. In many places that requires a signed release from the subject of the video.
Security footage isn't generally used to advertise a product or person.
You think viral exploitative TikTok videos that cater to the lowest intellect are the worst thing in media right now? You'd be wrong. Writing articles about those videos is outright the lowest rung on that ladder of shit.
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.
Actually, I see that article as the only way for that woman, and anyone else being in a viral video really, as the only means to get their voices heard as well. Hard to stink against millions of views and likes otherwise.
All it does it get that video more views. Are you so far gone in the horseshit the guardian peddles that you're willing to defend their cheap practice with arguments you invented yourself? Can you really not see how their aim is exclusively to sell more clicks?
While certainly demonstrative of an issue with our current society, I think it is important to remember that the video creator, while misguided, didn't do that much wrong. He is just trying to make something of himself, in fairly harmless way. In my opinion, not worthy of being burned at the stake.
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.
