What is the question about his ethics and morals?
Well, having a Squid Games is in and of itself something to discuss. Squid Games, the show, was about the exploitation of people at their worst doing unimaginable things and surviving torture to win money. Not sure what about that leads anybody to want to recreate it. It was this side of 10 years somebody wanted to do a game show in the theme of “Saw” and people freaked out. Now? Not so much.
Secondly, every single one of his charitable videos ends up making more money than he puts out in the charitable act, and that money is generated by filming and sharing himself doing (and the person or people receiving) said act. As I explained to my kids, if I see somebody in need who wants $10 for lunch, I give it to him, but film myself doing it and film them eating it, and then I make $100 off of it which I keep for myself, is that really charity? What is the level of altruism in an act where I give out $10, knowing I’ll receive $100 back? And when you get down to it, filming this person and sharing them and their story is what made me my $100… They only got $10. When it comes down to it, wouldn’t the person I made the money off of much rather the $100 that I now only have because of them? Is it ethical to essentially identify a person in need, give them money to be in my video, then pocketing the money from the video? Or is it identifying a person with an urgent need and thus a lower position of negotiation and exploiting it to walk away with more in your pocket than before? It’s not so much philanthropy as it is Shark Tank… Identifying a need, putting out money to meet it, then walking away with the profit.
Thirdly, the man puts out just as much (and more) garbage clickbait videos as he does charitable ones. Truly vapid, stupid things. That in and of itself is fine, but the number of people (especially young people) who think that because he does do things like build wells and pay for medical procedures, that it legitimizes the dumb content is pretty high. So the good is definitely balanced out by the ridiculous, but should probably contextualize to the younger set who seem to idolize him that just because he does good things that not everything he does is objectively good. Burying yourself alive, filming yourself on a private jet that cost over a million to fly, staying in 400k a night hotel rooms, its content, brainless content, and not an extension of his philanthropy.
Part of it is I have kids that of the age that idolizes the guy and I see what they and their peers say about him. There are definitely worse people to idolize, but there is some contextualization that needs to occur. Yes, he does charitable acts, but in the same way any major corporation does… Press, investments, and clickbait. The guy does a lot of objectively good things, but he also makes between 50-100 million dollars a year and will be a billionaire by the end of 2025, if not earlier. He’s less saint doing good for the sake of doing good, more investor a la “Shark Tank,” parlaying the money he puts out for charitable endeavors into a personal fortune.
