The Gaming Den

Ok this is a tiny little corner of the web where nobody who knows me goes so I'm gonna talk about a moral problem I'm having.

I haven't talked here before about the fact that I spend my days in NYC doing stand up comedy. That's what I do. I tell jokes on stages and try to make people laugh. It's cool and it puts me in contact with a lot of other people who are doing the same thing. It also puts me kind of close to the source for lots of stuff that is pretty big on the internet. I see guys and girls from Collegehumor a lot, I see a lot of other people who make the web content that goes big and and goes wide while that content is still being formed. That's often cool but lately it's been upsetting.

The thing is that there is a trend right now for "Giving money to poor people" videos that is just exploding. I know several different crews that have made their own and gotten a lot of response from it. Some even getting on the news. I'm seeing more and more of these getting started and more and more of the same videos popping up all over my facebook feed as people share these "heartwarming" videos.

If you've never seen one they're pretty simple. Someone goes up to someone who is poor and not uncommonly homeless and gives them money. Maybe it's a hundred dollar bill, at most 200. Many times it is a more circuitous method like, for example, giving them a lottery ticket and secretly filming the reaction when they find out it's a winner and get their money.

Here's the thing. These disgust me. I can't handle it. I know exactly the ad revenues they pull of these and it's a flat positive investment, that's a thing being openly talked about. The length of time for shooting, the amount they can give away and to exactly who being compared on charts to pageviews and revenue it will generate. It's heartless business and the emotion in them is so disgustingly manufactured that seeing it being praised over every media platform as faith-restoring humanitarian work is making me physically feel ill several times a day. Not to mention that the people doing them are almost uniformly the worst of our ilk.I don't resent people for being fame-hounds, it's almost a part of the profession but there is a sort of person who just exudes obvious sociopathy and a limitless hunger for limelight and those are the people who have been flying like moths to this trend.

It's been really hard for me to sit next to or do shows with these people and shrug it off. The greedy manipulative abuse of public sentimentality and the perversion of the very concept of charity has been difficult for me to watch but so far that's all I've done. Because while I may find it sickening I am also aware that their are still some poor people being handed money by people I know. My best estimate is that it is actually a net gain for the world even if it is a grotesque thing to listen to them talk about. A part of me feels like it should be shut down, that I should make some waves about it. Talk about it, write about it, etc. But the other part of me feels that if actual humans are having their conditions bettered then perhaps this is the best end to set selfish people to. Even if they have horrible motivations then someone is still getting food out of it so maybe it's good after all.

I just can't figure out what the moral and immoral thing here is. I know that every time I see or hear about it it makes me feel ill and dead inside, but if it's a net good then doing nothing and just dealing with it while it lasts may be the best thing to do.

In other words, they're everything that is wrong with sites like Upworthy, and you have to work with them? That sounds fucking miserable. I'd say that sounds like good material for a vicious standup routine, but I don't know how that'd affect you professionally.

That said, if it does in fact provide a net gain for poor people, fuck it. The shittiness of the world is too exhausting as it is to lose sleep over some smarmy fuck doing "charity" work as a attention-whoring gimmick.

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The way I'd look at it is this: "Is it doing harm?" I mean, sure, jerks are handing random people $100, and making, what, $1000? $10,000? So they go on and give another poor person $100 so they can make another $1000 or $10,000? It sounds to me like they're making charity into an actual profitable business model. If poor people are eating when they otherwise wouldn't be, I don't much care if the person who is enabling that is driving around in a gold-plated rolls royce packed with hookers. Some poor guy still got to eat.

Prak_Anima wrote:The way I'd look at it is this: "Is it doing harm?" I mean, sure, jerks are handing random people $100, and making, what, $1000? $10,000? So they go on and give another poor person $100 so they can make another $1000 or $10,000? It sounds to me like they're making charity into an actual profitable business model. If poor people are eating when they otherwise wouldn't be, I don't much care if the person who is enabling that is driving around in a gold-plated rolls royce packed with hookers. Some poor guy still got to eat.

See, I don't know that is the right way to look at things. I mean, the administrative costs of charities and how much money actually goes to the benefit of the cause is a huge deal. Nobody wants to give a dollar to a charity if only a penny is going towards the thing they think they're helping. A "charity" that exists to primarily enrich it's operatives is a scam; regardless of what incidental good they might be doing.

@vitm - If the opportunistic donors are asking for money to give away, then that's all fraudulent charity style. If they're capitalizing on an act of kindness, that's just kind of self-aggrandizing, with just a touch of exploitation thrown in.

Maj wrote:If they're capitalizing on an act of kindness, that's just kind of self-aggrandizing, with just a touch of exploitation thrown in.

For the latter they're kinda douches, but as douchery goes that's the best kind I can think of as there is little to no harm and some good done.

I think it is very human to be spiteful at people profiting from apparent charity. It is normal to want to spite someone getting $9 if you are only getting $1 by forfeiting both, even if you'd both be better off overall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game

This sort of thing has been going on for millenia now:

The Book of Matthew wrote: 2 “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. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

I would say you find an audience that's more receptive to that sort of thing (I don't know... middle-aged people? Do you perform for disgruntled atheists?), get some solid support for your facts, and work a little something into your comedy routine.

It could be a stretch, but could you try and get an article written up on Cracked, CollegeHumor, or something on Colbert/Daily Show?

...You Lost Me wrote:I would say you find an audience that's more receptive to that sort of thing (I don't know... middle-aged people? Do you perform for disgruntled atheists?), get some solid support for your facts, and work a little something into your comedy routine.

It could be a stretch, but could you try and get an article written up on Cracked, CollegeHumor, or something on Colbert/Daily Show?

I'd read a Cracked article outing the deceptive giver... industry? I have no idea what to call it.

I would be very interested in reading it if you linked in that article. I'm finding the idea of writing an article or making a parody video a satisfying solution.

You should write an article at the very least. It would give me something to link my friends when I rage at them.

End result is that homeless people get food. Also, a bunch of people watch charity happen, and are probably more likely to follow that example.

Actually there is good reason to believe that random acts of gifting people $100 are basically completely meaningless and unhelpful. And only constant expected support helps people.

Kaelik wrote:Actually there is good reason to believe that random acts of gifting people $100 are basically completely meaningless and unhelpful. And only constant expected support helps people.

Sure. But even so, would you rather have $100 or not-$100?

fectin wrote:

Kaelik wrote:Actually there is good reason to believe that random acts of gifting people $100 are basically completely meaningless and unhelpful. And only constant expected support helps people.

Sure. But even so, would you rather have $100 or not-$100?

Well I don't know, if I'm homeless, and other homeless people who are assholes know I have it, probably not $100.

Which is probably why one time large infusions almost never bring people out of poverty, and they spend it all immediately, and often end up in the hospital from overeating after starving for months.

So yeah, keep thinking money works the same for homeless people as your tax rebate does for you and giving them the chance to buy a new cool thing and they will keep on starving in the streets when they aren't getting beaten up or suffering food shock.

Wait... Didn't someone post an article to the contrary of that somewhere?

Maj wrote:Wait... Didn't someone post an article to the contrary of that somewhere?

To the contrary of what?

I mean, it is about poor people, so I can guarantee you that someone somewhere has written an article supporting every conceivable position.

Yeah, I remember it too. The posited scenario was far different from walking up to a guy on the street and handing him a $100, though. It was more like "Here, here's a few thousand. You'll get another few thousand in a month. And so on."

Should be a few pages back in Non-political news.

You can't really help the homeless without offering them a stable environment for them to sort their shit out and reintegrate into society (and even then, they have a lot of underlying problems that need taken care of before that process can even begin). They're not going to go from wandering the streets to productive members of societies because of a one-time infusion of cash that covers less than a week of an ordinary person's living expenses. They're going to splurge on consumables and be back where they started, because that's all they can do. Which, don't get me wrong, homeless people buying consumables to consume so they don't starve is great. But in the grand scheme of how shitty their life is you haven't done much for them, and you would probably be better off donating that money to a legitimate charity which provides that sort of support and contributing (in some small part) to actually taking someone off the street.

Make a parody video* act where you give money to 'the homeless' (actually a prostitute), and then talka bout how you were so charitable you let them stay at your house one night too. Play it straight, say something like "Charity is its own reward".

*or a standup act where you talk about how you got into that "give money to the poor" trend and tell them your story of how you did some giving to the 'poor'.

Prak_Anima wrote:Yeah, I remember it too. The posited scenario was far different from walking up to a guy on the street and handing him a $100, though. It was more like "Here, here's a few thousand. You'll get another few thousand in a month. And so on."

I remember reading an article about it, but I don't know anything about where it was. Some group gave 10-ish veteran homeless people several thousand dollars in a one-time installation, then checked in periodically to see what the homeless people were doing. The response was generally positive--I think all of them saved money, and most spent their money on things that advanced their status in society.

But, you know, anecdotes.

...You Lost Me wrote:

Prak_Anima wrote:Yeah, I remember it too. The posited scenario was far different from walking up to a guy on the street and handing him a $100, though. It was more like "Here, here's a few thousand. You'll get another few thousand in a month. And so on."

I remember reading an article about it, but I don't know anything about where it was. Some group gave 10-ish veteran homeless people several thousand dollars in a one-time installation, then checked in periodically to see what the homeless people were doing. The response was generally positive--I think all of them saved money, and most spent their money on things that advanced their status in society.

But, you know, anecdotes.

Or alternatively, several thousand dollars can actually buy you something actually fucking useful to improve your status, and $100 definitely fucking can't, because you need to eat and sleep and shower, and having done that, you have zero dollars left.

Yeah. The most a homeless guy can do with a one time $100 is load a bunch of money on a prepaid phone so he can keep in touch with loved ones, or whatever for a while. And even then he's better off doling it out to buy food to keep himself going, or buying something which removes a discomfort of homelessness.

Hell, I'd like to say that if you walked up to me and handed me $100 that I'd do something with it, but I know myself well enough to know that I would totally intend to use it to pay some of my phone debt, or whatever, but I would really just hold onto it while I procrastinated talking to the phone company and slowly hemorrhage the money into my gas tank and buying lunch on days like today where it turns 230 and all I've eaten is a couple pieces of toast and I'm out at school and chipotle sounds good.

Terrible people will still do good if it's in their selfish interest.

It's best to create situations where selfish actions will also benefit others, but to remember that terrible people are still terrible even when they are doing good.