This is a pretty reductionist view of his activities, IMO. Keeping cancer patients "happy," especially young children, is a huge part of their recovery. People like to speak in broad, fuzzy terms about the power of "smiles" and all that, but there's plenty of clinical research showing the significance of attitude on the workings of the body's response to disease. (And, even if the smiles had no effect whatsoever, it's still a noble cause to provide comfort to the sick and dying).
"...if his objective is to do as much good for the world as he can, he's not acheiving it."
But who said this was his objective? This is merely conjecture by a handful of HN commenters. Batman himself has neither stated, nor implied, that he's seeking to maximize utility of his efforts.
Even still, there's a very credible argument to be made in his defense against this charge.
Sure, he may not be maximizing his direct impact. But I imagine that the novelty of his approach, coupled with the publicity he's received, will have a large, indirect effect. Maybe more "Batmen" will answer the call of duty. Maybe more people will open up their hearts and wallets this week. Etc. It's highly likely that the sum total of his direct + indirect impact on the world is greater here than if he'd simply min/maxed the direct impact (e.g., by donation to X causes in Y locations).
He's now got symbolic value, as does the $250,000 Batmobile, and it's hard to measure the impact of that value. But it's certainly nontrivial.
As Ra's al-Ghul taught Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, the goal is to "become an idea." That way, what you stand for becomes far bigger than what you, alone, can achieve. You leverage your personal impact on the world. It's a lesson that this version of Batman seems to have learned well.
Certainly not me. "I consider it $250,000 that he's spending on a cool hobby that he enjoys, that also makes kids happy, and that also brings publicity to doing-good-things"
> He's now got symbolic value, as does the $250,000 Batmobile
He already has symbolic value, and I doubt that the $250,000 Batmobile will have that much symbolic value over his current one.
I agree with the rest of your post; but while your defense of the "Batman" approach is valid, remember that he didn't try to get this publicity. If he hadn't been pulled over, we wouldn't know about him.
With that in mind, we can assume that he didn't sit down and try to work out how to maximise his effect on the world; which in turn means that he probably isn't maximising his effect on the world.
I don't disagree with you about the incremental value of the additional +$250,000 spend on the new Batmobile. To me, that seems a little wasteful in service of whatever his goal happens to be (be it maximization, or otherwise). I won't begrudge him that decision; it's his money to spend, his passion, and a good cause to boot. But I could certainly think of better ways for him to spend that money in service of the same cause. (For instance, starting a "Batman Development Kit" of sorts, by creating a program for others to provide similar services across the country. Or, if the folks at DC/Warner Bros were smart, they might reach out to him to license the "Superfriends" collection and superhero roster gratis, for use in such a program).
Actually, I don't disagree with most of what you're saying here. But:
"remember that he didn't try to get this publicity. If he hadn't been pulled over, we wouldn't know about him."
Totally fair. But he provided symbolic value to his intended (albeit smaller) subset even before he went viral. And I would imagine that the indirect financial impact of that symbolism already exceeded the monetary value of his investment in said symbolism, even to the smaller (intended) target audience.
Of course, I realize that all of this discussion is somewhat academic unless we really understand what his motives were, and were not. To your point, it's a safe bet that he didn't sit down one day and try to quantitatively project his impact. :)
This is a pretty reductionist view of his activities, IMO. Keeping cancer patients "happy," especially young children, is a huge part of their recovery. People like to speak in broad, fuzzy terms about the power of "smiles" and all that, but there's plenty of clinical research showing the significance of attitude on the workings of the body's response to disease. (And, even if the smiles had no effect whatsoever, it's still a noble cause to provide comfort to the sick and dying).
"...if his objective is to do as much good for the world as he can, he's not acheiving it."
But who said this was his objective? This is merely conjecture by a handful of HN commenters. Batman himself has neither stated, nor implied, that he's seeking to maximize utility of his efforts.
Even still, there's a very credible argument to be made in his defense against this charge.
Sure, he may not be maximizing his direct impact. But I imagine that the novelty of his approach, coupled with the publicity he's received, will have a large, indirect effect. Maybe more "Batmen" will answer the call of duty. Maybe more people will open up their hearts and wallets this week. Etc. It's highly likely that the sum total of his direct + indirect impact on the world is greater here than if he'd simply min/maxed the direct impact (e.g., by donation to X causes in Y locations).
He's now got symbolic value, as does the $250,000 Batmobile, and it's hard to measure the impact of that value. But it's certainly nontrivial.
As Ra's al-Ghul taught Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, the goal is to "become an idea." That way, what you stand for becomes far bigger than what you, alone, can achieve. You leverage your personal impact on the world. It's a lesson that this version of Batman seems to have learned well.