Despite what you've been taught, every act of charity comes from a selfish need (ego). Whether that is predatory or not from the standpoint of the donor, I'll leave that up to you to decide.
And to be clear, his acts of charity have made an impact in the people who have benefited from it. Whether the public response is positive or negative is besides the point.
> Despite what you've been taught, every act of charity comes from a selfish need (ego).
This may be some kind of projection or just your personal opinion of society and human motivation. You aren't inside the brains of every human and can't possibly know everyone's motivations at all times. It's quite possible that some or many of them experience authentic altruism.
The idea, cynical as it may seem, comes from the perspective that the feedback loops that govern basic behavior are set up for survival and that things that make you happy are more like survival than not. So it becomes very difficult if you introspect deep enough to not answer "why did you do that" with "it made me feel good" which is viewable as selfish.
Seems to me you've just selected a prior perspective - "the feedback loops that govern basic behavior are set up for survival" - which doesn't allow for altruism.
I see reasoning like this online all the time. A person donates $10 billion, and people say they it must have given them a warm fuzzy feeling, and that feeling is by definition worth $10 billion, because that's what they paid for it. As if the idea of selflessness or human goodness or anything existing outside the real of rational economic exchange is so challenging they find it more plausible that a warm feeling is worth $10 billion.
(Not that I think MrBeast is particularly an example of altruism - although it's probably an example of good)
I was about to type that maybe it's about intention, but then I realised that expectation of feeling good is a reward based motivation.
Having behaviours that benefit your group rewarded and reinforced seems an obvious survival trait. It feels good, like reproduction. I wonder it's purely societal evolution or if there's a genetic component there.
Maybe it's hard to reconcile all this because calling something altruism is subjective, since we are not all knowing.
Selfish means to lack consideration for others or to be concerned only with your needs. A donation that makes you feel good but benefits others doesn’t really fit that term. If it’s done purely to advance yourself through brand or something like that, or gain financial opportunities then I think I’d agree it could be selfish.
Like those act of kindness videos on YouTube with millions of views and earning the creators thousands of dollars.
You sound a little too defensive there, perhaps thou protests too much?
Only joking, but no it is not "projection". It is definition. It goes something like "people do what they want to so if they donate something to others it is because they wanted to do it and therefore it was not selfless."
It's a pretty stupid and pointless definition though, probably sprung from someone's need to economicsify human nature. Even then you can easily get around it by defining selflessness to be the selfish need to give to others.
You’re not wrong, but there’s a big difference between donating money to feel good about yourself or even hope others like you more, and building a capital engine with a veneer of philanthropic paint.
I'd much rather perform my acts of charity publicly for the same reason I like open source coding: to get feedback so I can do it better.
Anonymous charity is more often than not even more a road towards satisfying a selfish need. It elevates the sense that what you're doing is more just because it is anonymous so "surely I can't be doing it to make a show of it" except this perverse thinking often leads to elevating one's own desire to feel righteous above, y'know... Actual proof that the charity works and does any good. Doing it anonymously also means you avoid any criticism so you get to safeguard the selfish narrative in your head that you're a good person because nobody can point out any flaws in your charity acts.
I'd trust someone who is public about their altruism and opens it to criticism any day of the week more than someone who hides it. I trust people who are public about their charity and respond and change based on valid criticism the most.
> I'd much rather perform my acts of charity publicly for the same reason I like open source coding: to get feedback so I can do it better.
What kind of feedback can you get when the donation is not anonymous that you can't otherwise? I really can't think of anything.
> Anonymous charity is more often than not even more a road towards satisfying a selfish need. It elevates the sense that what you're doing is more just because it is anonymous so "surely I can't be doing it to make a show of it" except this perverse thinking often leads to elevating one's own desire to feel righteous above, y'know... Actual proof that the charity works and does any good.
Yea, one can know if charity works without putting their name to it...
> What kind of feedback can you get when the donation is not anonymous that you can't get otherwise? I really can't think of anything
I don't even know where to begin... This is like saying "what kind of feedback can you get when the products you buy are not anonymous." When I buy a phone or some set of products it's usually public in the sense that I go to forums to talk about it, or my friends see the products I use, etc etc and people see what I use and I get feedback of the "hey, there is this product that might do this thing you care about better"
Likewise, if what you care about is x and you just go and donate to some charity, nobody can tell you something of the form "hey, there is this charity that might do this thing you care about better"
Just like with products, de-anonymizing also increases trust when you see a positive review. Same goes with charities. It opens up a more worthwhile place where discussions can be held.
> yea, one can know if charity works without putting their name to it...
Totally true. Except you still run the risk of fooling yourself more if you keep it to yourself. I don't trust myself and prefer to defer to those who research charities for a living. I talk with these people a lot, tell them what my values are, and then get charity recommendations.
I suppose a counter-argument you might make is you can still engage with people anonymously and learn what you need. That I also totally agree with.
I think you and I might be using the word "anonymous" differently.
What I'm arguing against is a kind of charity that is anonymous where the person doing this charity is an island and doesn't talk to or engage with anyone or anything about it out of principle. I think a lot of people think this is a good principle to hold. I am completely opposed to it. Is there even one good reason to do charity in complete secrecy? Even if you prefer to be anonymous (which is completely understandable), it is still better to engage with people to learn why a charity is a "good buy."
True. Which is why a lot of people recognize this and perform acts of charity anonymously.
Curb Your Enthusiasm did a whole episode on anonymous donations. Absolutely roasted the entire premise! The ego of anonymous donors is just as big, if not bigger! The anonymity is worth even more ego points!
Isn't this incredibly circular reasoning? You're critiquing someone for their action (donations come from selfish need), yet any attempt to make the situation "better" makes it even worse. You're defining their good actions as bad for no apparent reason. The only solution would be not to donate.
Let's apply this reasoning to a different topic - if there is a puppy drowning in a river and somebody jumps in to save it, will you also tell them they are doing it to fulfill a selfish need?
My main complaint is with the altruist label. It’s a secularized version of “saint”, as far as I’m concerned. I have no problem with someone doing good deeds for other people and deriving personal satisfaction (and the validation of others) from it. I do this myself. My problem is when we start calling some people “altruists” when they have the same motivations as I do.
As for the puppy, try this: replace it with a black widow spider drowning in a toilet. How many people will save it now?
>Isn't this incredibly circular reasoning? You're critiquing someone for their action
I think it's perfect, as arguably, you could say that about the initial point as well (it's not altruistic because ego). When reduced this way, it doesn't really matter if ego is involved if the result actually makes an impact and betters someone else's life.
This is incorrect. The modern American Gordon Gecko derived brand of capitalism that helps people justify being selfish to themselves.
The OCEAN model demonstrates that we are distributed into camps of "principally considering self first" and "principally considering others first". You take the most high Trait-Agreeable people, and they will all routinely sacrifice their own resources, position, opinion and wellbeing for others. This is fundamentally where maternalism is rooted psychologically too.
But to your point - I agree that if people have benefited from it, then it's still a good thing.
And to be clear, his acts of charity have made an impact in the people who have benefited from it. Whether the public response is positive or negative is besides the point.