Oliver Bateman Does the WorkVerified account

this doesn't make those leaders or top followers "grifters" in the correct sense of that term. It's not a grift if the activity has the outcome that the primary organizers hoped it would have, of elevating their brands

Umm.... So the fulfillment of the organisers' intentions excludes the possibility of a grift? That seems.... Wacky.

The intention is to build the brand. It’s always a commercial enterprise, in the marketplace of ideas. To think otherwise is naive (though even the person who gains clout may think otherwise). But it’s not bad faith on their part, or a grift. It’s just life

If the professed intention is something other than brand-building (and by definition the professed intention of The Work is always more than that), and the actual intention is brand-building (again, by definition always the case), then it can't be anything *but* bad faith.

Therefore it would seem The Work is by definition always bad-faith, and always a grift, even if unintentionally so.

not in the USA, certainly. the ideal here has always been to do well by doing good. If you're doing well in the process of doing good, if you're getting a little clout as a treat, then you're not guilty of genuine bad faith. You're just following in the footsteps of others

'the ideal' = the professed goal Yes, the professed goal has always been to profit off creating positive change. The real goal, however, for many, is really just to profit, positive change or no. That's bad faith. I think we agree on this?

@tereseaimee and I have gone back and forth on this, but we’ve concluded that most of them are naive enough, intellectually limited enough, or high enough on their own supply to believe what we perceive as pure profiteering is still “doing well by doing good.”There are exceptions