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Comment by s1artibartfast | Hacker News Reader

>Sunshine Protection Act

Jesus, does everything need to be hyperbolic virtue signaling. Won't someone please think of the children!

It's modeled after a Florida law with that name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Protection_Act

Florida is "The Sunshine State", so the name was a little more clever in that context. I can't emphasize enough that I call it a little clever, not a lot clever.

Nothing these days sounds more like virtue signaling than calling things out as virtue signaling.

I find the term "vice signaling" is often appropriate in these contexts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling#:~:text=%22v...

When did virtue signaling become a bad thing? If the goal of the act is to protect people's access to sunshine, why not say as much -- at least the act has a human readable name.

It's not a bad thing, but in the eyes of people who genuinely believe they do not do it.

Virtue signalling usually is juxtaposed with being virtuous for its own sake: Those who have to tell everyone how good/enlightened/progressive they are usually aren't.

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

-M. Thatcher

Just substitute the word "virtuous" in

> When did virtue signaling become a bad thing?

I'll offer no commentary on whether "Sunshine Protection Act" is virtue signaling, but I think virtue signaling is less "talking about having done virtuous things" and more "talking about doing virtuous things with the intent to gain social capital". It's the facade, the ulterior motive that most people balk at. In that sense it has always been a "bad" thing.

Therefore, using virtue signaling as an epithet is a bad faith claim to be able to peek into people's minds and determine bad intent in order to discourage people from publicly supporting a cause.

Or it can be used as a condemnation after comparing their professed values against their actual behavior.

While it is indeed impossible to read people's minds, people can reasonably sense a mix of insincerity and attention seeking behavior.

It's a bad thing when they are passing laws that violate your privacy but call the act "the protect the children act" - I think this is the habit OP was referring to

Virtue signaling is a problem when it injects a moral aspect into areas that are disputed or subjective.

In this case, it frames the issue as the enlightened who want to"protect people's access to sunshine" against the evil forces of darkness.

In reality, there is no moral highground, good guys, or bad guys.

Some people simply like sunshine at different times. It would be nice if we could act like adults and start from this premise. We can try to come up with a solution for how to set our clocks without claiming the preference of the other side is illegitimate or morally bankrupt.

When you end up with bills called things like the "Patriot" that whitewash the dangerous capabilities of the laws and at the same time create a name thats immune to criticism.

Obviously ending DST isn't like that, but you have SOPA, EARN IT, etc, etc.

I believe this kind of branding should have no place in legislature.

Virtue signaling the act or virtue signaling the term?

Hollow signaling has always been crap as far as I'm concerned. The term became a dirty word in left leaning circles and a slight pejorative in right leaning ones in the last ~10yr or so which IMO is a shame because it describes a wide variety of modern behavior and there is no good replacement.

There's probably a rhetorical term for it. Claiming that someone or something is good, but not demonstrating or justifying why it is good

Agreed. Maybe sunshine exploitation maximization act would be more accurate.

That is pretty funny. Don’t want to be caught voting against the Sun

Until your constituents are vampires. Or you sold short sunglasses stock.

huh? What virtue is being signaled here? It's just a marketing name.

It's extra funny in this case, because the main point of those opposing this bill seems to be "Won't someone think of the children? They'll have to walk to school in the dark!"

Schools here frequently have a delayed start on winter days because of black ice on the roads. Permanent DST will only make that happen more frequently. Perhaps this will cause the school system to look into a schedule adjustment during the winter months that accounts for the reality that black ice is a problem here during those months instead of acting like it's an unexpected situation that couldn't be foreseen each time it happens.

As much as our Congress annoys me, I think it's possibly a little tongue in cheek in this case. Because if that's the name, it would be the SPA act.

They're synonyms for "Daylight Savings". Slow down before accusing people making an amusing pun.

Maybe "self aggrandizing" is a better description of this name if you take it seriously. I just find it amusing.

Given the darker mornings that would result it’s clearly an anti-woke measure.

>does everything need to be hyperbolic virtue signaling

Yes. And our tax dollars fund it.

I would love someone to propose a bill that requires the elimination of hyperbolic virtue signaling from all future bills, perhaps as an additional step in whatever pipeline is used to produce bills.

Just need a hyperbolic virtue signaling name for it!

The old art of the backronym was once florishing in the IT sector ... but like so many fun things, it eventually got axed by corporate.

Tag Regulations Understandable To Humans - TRUTH Act

American Integrity Act

Aren't there some legislatures that have guidelines on promoting neutral naming of legislation, in order to reduce the marketing or manipulation value of act titles?

It does seem like the "AWESOME Goodness Act" or "CUTE Puppies Act" phenomenon is especially strong here in the U.S.

Honesty Act

Mr. Burns doesn't like this at all!

This is just funny to me honestly.

>Jesus, does everything need to be hyperbolic virtue signaling.

It's a bit ironic given the current anti-Russia everything when Russia is the largest country in the world on permanent DST. If the bill had been subject to debate instead of going through so fast, I suspect someone would have brought up the Russia connection and the whole thing would have died a quick death as "we don't want to be like the Russians".

>Russia is the largest country in the world on permanent DST.

Actually, Russia tried permanent DST, but then switched to permanent standard time 3 years later after that turned out to be a terrible idea:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29773559

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