I Played a Homeless Chess Genius For $2000.00

I played a game of chess with my friend, the homeless man Istvan. I paid him 2167 US dollars or 15.000 danish kroner for his participation. I hope you like the video! Thanks to Brilliant for making this possible! Visit https://www.brilliant.org/asmrchess to get a 30-day free trial and a 20% discount on an annual subscription! Is this video exploitative? The premise of this video rests on the fact that Istvan is extremely underprivileged. In general I am not a wealthy man, but compared to Istvan I live like a king. I have a warm bed at night, I never go hungry and I don’t have to rely on charity from anyone. I don’t know how to build a fire, because the cold has never forced me to learn. Therefore I have a responsibility to justify my actions as best I can. First, I’ll recognize the exploitative nature of what I’m doing in this video. Istvan is an intelligent, kind and generous man, yet his station in life unrightfully robs him of the dignity required to refuse the money. Doing these ASMR Chess videos is part of a career I’m trying to build, and as such I am exploiting the misfortune of a good man to further my own ends. This is fundamentally against everything I believe a good person should do. Why did I do it anyway? The ASMR Chess channel has gained me the privilege of being approached by sponsors, who can advertise their products in my videos and make a profit through them. As much as I wish I could, I would never have been able to afford paying Istvan 15.000DKK without the sponsor pooling in a very significant amount of the money. If I didn’t do the video, I couldn’t help Istvan. I decided to go ahead and make and publish the video based on the following reasoning: The money will make a real and positive difference for a man who truly deserves it. I’ve spoken to “Hjemløseenheden” which is an organization dedicated to help the homeless in Denmark. They know the practicalities of life on the street much better than I. They recommended going ahead with the project, saying that on balance it would do considerably more good than harm. They also cleared up many points for me, regarding how to handle the video with as much dignity and respect as possible. I asked Istvan if he wanted to be in the video, both before and after. He readily accepted. This was not charity. The money was payment for Istvan’s participation in the video. As such it was as close to an equal and fair transaction as I could make it. In the video I have tried to show Istvan not as “a homeless person”, but as the amazing human being he really is. I’ve tried to mitigate the exploitative nature of the premise, by attempting my best to show that we are all just humans. Some are lucky, some are not.