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Comment by vasco | Hacker News Reader

> But this doesn't strike me as being done out of any noble purpose

Money given away doesn't have to have a "noble purpose", the act is good in itself. The people receiving it don't care about motive, I don't care about motive, and the only reason you care about motive is because you're threatened by another person doing good. There's no virtue inherent to giving anonymously. A piece of food or a warm house don't care about the intentions of the original owner of the money.

In fact the only reason I could see for someone pushing a narrative of "only some donations are good because of motive" would be to discourage donations, which I'm not sure why anyone would do unless they are utterly evil.

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> I don't care about motive

Pablo Escobar gave free money away. Would you take the money? He also built schools.

Motive matters. His intents were to build loyalty masked as charity. MrBeast is building (or has built) something else, masked as charity.

I hope MrBeast never stop giving away money and curing people, but there are some considerations to make here, and not just taking as granted the reasons the very same person doing charity is clearly trying to transmit.

What you are talking about is accepting stolen funds or goods. That means the source is illicit, but it doesn't say anything about motive. Motive and source of the funds are different things. I obviously don't support crime or people knowingly accepting stolen funds. You can have a bad motive with legal funds, a good motive with legal funds, a bad motive with illegal funds or a good motive with illegal funds. Your conflating of these concepts is bringing a different aspect I didn't comment on, but I can:

If Mr. Beast steals money to donate it I'd be against it regardless of motive.

it very much depends who he would be stealing from. see robin hood.

> There's no virtue inherent to giving anonymously.

Maimonides has a different viewpoint: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzedakah

Maimonides and about everyone who has thought about the concept of charity for a while

What about when the public act of giving causes you to be able to give more?

Is it better to give privately, knowingly kneecapping your capacity to do so again in the future?

I used neither the words "good" nor "bad" so I think you're responding to something that I didn't write.

Why is the "noble"ness of his actions relevant?

He's not viral because of charity, he's charitable because he was already a highly viral video creator. It's not a comment on his videos, it's a comment on the NY Times framing.

As much as I agree with that analysis. I still think being charitable instead of blowing money on hookers, drugs and cars is something to applaud.

Just like many other celebrities that continue to make money of their lifestyle which isn’t something to applaud.

I believe Snoop Dog did his fair share of charity but I definitely don’t applaud his endeavors in pornography and drugs.

On the other hand I don’t have any idea if mr.Beast spends money on hookers.

But if I would choose which content should be more available on the internet I’d go with me.Beast not Snoop Dog.

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