1/ There's something that bugs me about the "virtue signaling" discourse, which goes like this GROUP A: "Ugh, those people are virtue signaling -- they're just saying that stuff to seem like good people" GROUP B: "What's wrong with wanting to show you're a good person??"
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2/ And what bugs me is that Group B seems to be ignoring the key premise of Group A's critique - that the virtue-signalers *don't really believe* the stuff they're saying. Group A may be wrong about that (I often think they are), but still, that's the crux of their complaint.
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3/ Group B's response seems to be defending people who say things they truly believe, out of a motivation to look good (e.g., decrying injustices) But Group A's complaint was about people who say bullshit they don't really believe, out of a motivation to look good.
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EDIT: I'm no longer confident in my original read on what is meant by "virtue signaling" / when it is used
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Replying to @juliagalef
It's confusing because both are true. Some people use "virtue signaling" to mean insincere expression, but other people have the idea that human beings evolved to virtue signal and you wouldn't know if you are doing it. (The best way to convince someone of something
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @juliagalef
is to believe it yourself, even if there are deep and weird and highly utilitarian ulterior motives to why you are believing the thing).
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That I have seen, there hasn't been any clear attempt on the internet to disambiguate these two understandings of v.s. Most people use the first one, by volume, but also, most argumentation is low quality, by volume.
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @juliagalef
I would argue that it’s still a problem if people do it unknowingly, although correcting it would obviously take a different approach.
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