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Comment by corndoge | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of Martin's guilt or innocence (prior to conviction) this is virtue signalling at it's finest.

"It has become popular to describe certain behaviour as ‘virtue signalling’. [...] As popular as it is, it’s a stupid term that misuses the concepts it invokes, it encourages lazy thinking, and it’s hypocritical.

The term signalling does not mean the same thing as 'saying' or 'showing off' when it is used by economists or biologists. Signalling means credibly giving information that is difficult to prove just by saying it. For example, banks used to have very grand buildings. Any bank could claim to be safe, but only a bank that had lots of money could afford a grand office."

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/stop-saying-virtue-signalling

"Guano (from Quechua "wani" via Spanish) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds, seals, or cave-dwelling bats.[1] As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to its exceptionally high content of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium: nutrients essential for plant growth."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano

In other words -- why do I give a shit what Adam Smith's opinion is?

In the past year or two, it seems like this has become a favored way to easily dismiss someones moral opinion and is being appended to my list of things to help me disregard the opinion of the person calling out 'virtue signaling'.

I'll grant that it's overused, but vehemently defending a morally justifiable opinion (i.e. "I hate shkreli bcuz daraprim and he h8's aidz patients, hes the most hated man in america becuz I read a news article titled "the most hated man in america") that's also speculative and based entirely on media hype with no reliable sources...I'm not sure what else to call it. Ignorance? Stupidity? Disinformation?

Virtue signalling should be weakened by an anonymous jury.

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