Would you say that any time someone encourages good behavior in others that it amounts to virtue-signaling? Is encouraging good behavior bad?
And "wokeism" aside, he gives a good obscure-history lesson as to why the phrase "cargo cult" doesn't actually mean what most of us think it does. That itself made it worth a read for me.
He's skipping Twitter and jumped straight to hectoring people, going to the extent of even casting blanket criticism on the points being made by anyone using the metaphor.
Did the author make this article compulsory?
Did the author force Hacker News to put this on the front page?
Did the author threaten to sack you if you didn't read, understand and comply with the article?
Freedom of speech means that you will see things that you disagree with. But to conflate seeing an article in a _pull_ model, ie a title that you have to click on as hectoring people seems a bit, well far.
Its not like its a twitter pile on, this seems like a well reasoned, researched article with sited sources. Even if you don't agree with the outcomes.
He personally may not. We do know though there are a lot of people very eager to wage such campaigns, and we know speech-policing campaigns have very real and very far reaching consequences sometimes. So the sensitivity to such things is heightened right now. And I am sure that if the "rambling on his personal blog" contained some things that are considered culturally unacceptable (something like Damore memo, for example), there would be a lot of people who would call not only for widespread discussion but for suppression and deplatforming of the person expressing it. I think this is extremely wrong approach, regardless of the content, but I think also this may be the reason why discussing this seriously is an appropriate reaction. To be clear, I do not call (and I am extremely opposed to) attacking the person writing it in any way. But I think it deserves the pushback - in the form of discussion and critique - that it is getting. Language policing and censorship is very real, very dangerous and should be discussed and pushed back against.
> he gives a good obscure-history lesson as to why the phrase "cargo cult" doesn't actually mean what most of us think it does.
I am not sure that's actually true. Most of us probably thinks cargo cult is a religions practice somewhere in the Pacific that mimics external looks of the logistical operations performed by Westerners on their islands to expect the results of coming of goods that the Westerners brought in (cargo), without understanding what caused the actual logistic processes to happen and how they work, just by magic means. Most of us would probably have the specific details wrong, but that's true for almost every area. The article provided very good plenty of details, very interesting - but with all the "akshually"-ing there, I don't think it has proven the main premise wrong. The information itself is very much appreciated, but I don't think the conclusion - which seems to be "you are all wrong and should stop using this term" - is warranted.
You might find them annoying, but these people "yelling at clouds" in their personal blogs are actually refreshing when all you see around are people leaning towards repeating the darkest part of our collective history.
I read the post as the author decribing facts and imparting instructions of what we should do ("It's time to do X", "The cargo cult metaphor should be avoided") because they believe their knowledge/opinions/morals/beliefs are better than mine, and somehow they can dictate what to do; how should I feel, what should I think.
Otherwise I am oppressing, contributing to oppress, perpetuating something, [insert other accusations].
As in the past 15 years. It's enough already.
The real question is why the author is doing this? Is it ego? Money? Clicks? Pure and true altruism?
And here "virtue signalling" comes as a possible valid answer too.
The problem with saying it's virtue signaling is that when you resort to ad hominem attacks, you're conceding the argument. Attacking character concedes the argument being made. Well I don't concede. I have a good argument against it. My argument is that nobody cares about the etymology or morality of a word. They care about its meaning and context. People don't learn language by reading etymologies. Nobody cares one way or the other about the morality of the first person who said it or popularized it especially if it happened a hundred years ago. We don't need to look up the etymology of every word or phrase before using it, and asking people to do that is unrealistic and unreasonable.
Is it virtue signaling? I don't know, and I don't care. His character doesn't matter to me. It doesn't affect whether or not his idea is a good one. It's a bad idea, and leave it there.
And doesn't matter if it was written in a blog.
Pablo Escobar could say that he understand his values (whatever they were; maybe money and power over all other values?) and that he works to apply them every day. He advocated for his own values and morals (ruthlessly). This doesn't make him an Ethical person.
And more to the point, you're not believable. Are you really going to say that because Pablo Escobar may have had a set of values and acted on those values, we have to throw away that whole idea?
Hitler was really fond of his pet dog, does having a pet dog make someone evil?
In any case, here's what I dislike about your original comment, and what it seems to express.
Instead of engaging with the ideas and values presented in the article, you feel back on attacking the very idea of expressing ideas and values. You know that's a ridiculous position, I know you do, but it's easier to do that than it is to actually engage.
Depends. Have you heard of the terms or phrases "preachy"? "Holier-than-thou"? "Pearl-clutching"? "Making mountains out of molehills"? "Language police"? "White knighting"? "Misapplied effort"? "Professionally offended"?
Are those positive?
And who gets to decide what's "bad behavior" and what's merely use of an old term? Based on what? Their feelings that use of the term offends someone from some group that they themselves don't belong to and have probably never even talked to IRL? That it's use implies some intend? That certain practices of some groups can't be referenced as a name, if those groups have had a sorry past? That the only ethnic people who use such terms are just the ex-opressors of said group, and not also people who have been themselves colonized or opressed? Does he think e.g. Jewish or Latin American or African developers don't use such terms too to describe the notion?
L-1) There's a purely informational layer, where he's talking about the meaning and history of the phrase "cargo cult."
L-2) There's an logical layer, where he attempts to use the information presented to persuade the reader to (not) modify their beliefs, feelings, or actions in some way.
L-3) There's an attitude layer, which involves the way he addresses the reader, his "virtue signaling," the quality of his writing, his overall tone.
(In another situation I might also consider:
L-4) The presentation layer, which involves the look of the website, its responsiveness, etc.)
In my opinion generally information should be most important, and then we look at the logic, and last but least consider the attitude. But I feel like increasingly in society we look at the attitude and if it turns us off, we summarily discard the entire thing, or even take an opposing view on principle. Even if the information and logic is sound. Hence the bulk of the comments here dismissing what he's saying out of hand because essentially it's too woke.
So my answer is that even conceding that the things you mention ("preachy" "holier-than-thou" etc.) are negative, ideally we ought to be able to critique just that layer without discarding the rest of the communication.
EDIT: Responding to your edit, I think he has no more or less right to decide what's good or bad than anyone else. Just because he's saying we ought to reject the phrase doesn't mean we have to actually do it, so I don't feel personally offended or enraged by his exhortation.
So, it makes sense that the thing the author prioritizes and focuses on will be criticized. Would many be criticizing a historical article on the origins of the term, or the plights of the people it covers?
Collective consensus.
But that doesn't mean the author is not entitled to have an opinion and express it.
The commenters who dislike the general tone are of course entitled to express that, however, it is baffling to me that the argument is that Author is entitled to their opinion and the commenters who disagree should not comment.
>> And who gets to decide what's "bad behavior" >Collective consensus.
I know this is generally the way of things however, I dislike this as it is mob rule.