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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

While we're banning these other words, can we also ban "virtue signaling"? It basically means "you are being insincere" and is just as unproductive.

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I like it because it includes the implication that you're doing it to ingratiate yourself with people who are already your allies, and passing it off as bravery. That's more specific than insincere.

Even the term bravery can be contentious. For example some might call a multibillionaire taking a few hours from his Saturday to join a protest at SFO an act of bravery. Others might find it a nice thing to do, but ultimately insulting to conflate with bravery.

But this is HN after all, it's a relatively self selecting and privileged bubble. One man's bravery is another man's minor act of inconvenience.

It's funny, because if you express opposition to racism and someone accuses you of virtue signalling, they're basically saying "nobody believes that anti-racist stuff, you're just saying it to look good".

Very illuminating.

I'm not sure how illuminating that really is. I mean I'm sure that is what some people think when accusing others of virtue signalling, but I'm fairly certain others are basically saying "hey look, here's another privileged wealthy white tech guy who mostly lives in neighborhoods filled with similar people, and went to school with similar people, and runs entire companies filled with similar people, and is mostly friends with similar people, and benefits enormously from a system that affords him privilege while doing very little to confront those aspects of societal privilege, but yeah, look how totally not racist he is since he sent out a tweet saying racism is bad".

I also take issue with the idea that "expressing opposition to racism" really counts as "opposition". Talk is cheap, particularly if you're rich and privileged, and even more so if you're rich, privileged, and your talk is uncontroversial. Opposing racism requires every day actions, some of them difficult or uncomfortable, not self congratulatory tweets and blog posts. And especially not self congratulatory tweets and blog posts from CEOs or venture capitalists.

My point isn't that it's redundant, but that's it's an unproductive thing to say. If you want to insult someone, you might as well come out and use some curse words. Don't hide behind scientific language.

Banned as an accusation against someone you're arguing against as ad hominem well poisoning? Yes. Otherwise, no.

That's the only way I've ever seen it used.

I was listening to a commentator a few days ago mention how frequently discussions of identity politics are diverted from practical economic issues associated with identity to the virtue of the participants in the conversation.

-----

Person A: I'm facing discrimination in my industry.

Person B: I don't see color. Racists are bad.

Person A: Too bad I don't work for you. How can I deal with what is happening?

Person B: There's going to be more of this with Trump. I hate Trump.

-----

I related to this dynamic a lot.

edit: it was an interview of Asad Haider (editor of viewpointmag.com) on the last Behind The News (Doug Henwood's show) episode.

> "virtue signaling" ... basically means "you are being insincere"

Superficially true, but the virtues people are basically forced to signal in order not to be economically ruined are, as they say, socially constructed.

Never heard about that as maybe not a native English speaker. What is it?

The Wikipedia article seems good:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling

The short version is, it's when someone acts in a "moral" fashion not because they truly believe it, but because they want others to see them as virtuous. Imagine someone attending a protest purely so that their friends can see them protesting, or donating to charity just so they can tell everyone that they donated.

One minor nitpick: in social media the criticism generally applies mostly to mere statements, especially statements of support or outrage over any given emotionally loaded issue.

Attending a protest or donating to charity is relatively risky and expensive in comparison to just feigning outrage, retweeting slogans or changing your avatar.

Yeah virtue signaling is mostly a Facebook/Twitter thing.

YouTube too. Just pick any Sargon of Akkad video at random, it's almost guaranteed to be about either "virtue signalling", "moral busybodies" (i.e. the people mostly engaging in virtue signalling) or "cultural Marxism".

Or if someone proclaims "support the troops!" yet doesn't donate to veterans efforts, or support simple policies toward that end.

It's the idea that people hold positions, or claim to hold such positions to signal (show off) how virtuous they are. For instance, say I don't have strong feelings about policy X. However, in my social circle policy X is seen as really bad. I then voice my disagreement with policy X, as a means of "signalling that I am virtuous". I would also potentially proclaim to hold strong disgust over those who agree with the policy, to distance myself from then.

I've never heard the phrase, and I read the news every day.

The phrase is more common in social media than in the news. It's not exactly the kind of language you'd expect in a news article.

It's not a term you would often hear in the news.

Me neither.

I'd define it "When in Rome ...."

Personally I would never attach the word "virtue" to opinion/thought only actions.

"Virtue signaling" is just a modern term for an age old concept. Yesterday someone mentioned that he wanted to know the morbid people using this term (paraphrased).

It turns out that Jesus was one of those morbid people, criticizing the Pharisees and hypocrisy (preaching water and drinking wine).

Hypocrisy permeates business and politics, so while "virtue signaling" is perhaps overused, it is nonetheless a useful catch phrase. You can also use it against the right, if you wish.

Trump holding a rifle on stage is also virtue signaling.

It's a fine concept. I don't object to the concept at all. I've accused Trump of doing this sort of thing a lot, just not using those words.

What I object to is the specific phrase itself. Not because it's inherently bad, but because of how it's used. People use it as a way to dismiss and insult people without appearing dismissive and insulting. It's like if I say "you're suffering from a rectal-cranial inversion" rather than "you have your head up your ass."

If people want to call me insincere and disingenuous, I'd like them to have the courage to say it straight, not hide it behind scientific terms.

And "political correctness" as well. Nowadays the real political correctness and virtue signaling is on the side of those in power. "Prove that you're with us, or you'll be sent to reeducation camp with the others." The way they use these terms is Newspeak all over.

Virtue signaling is a specific application of a major idea in game theory and economics. It is not abstract like "hate." See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signaling_game

That's very interesting but irrelevant. People aren't using the term as a reference to game theory, they're using it as a cowardly way to say "You don't actually believe what you're saying."

When people are using this term, they are often implying that the ones signalling are trying to send false information to others. By signaling virtue they will be treated like a virtuous person even when they are immoral. The implication is that people virtue signalling are conscious that they don't believe what they say, but still say it for the sake of gain.

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