The linked article suggestions would work on a holiness-neutral topic like emacs vs vi, but I don't think the suggested tactics would work against holy virtue signalling.
The term can be overused. But we need a way to describe the very real underlying phenomenon, of expectations that everyone ought to endorse and actively promote promote a particular moral stance. Trying to talk about modern activism without the term "virtue signaling" would be like trying to talk about churches without the term "religion".
The term "virtue signalling" is a derogatory term for something that every person does in pretty much every form of communication. You can perceive it in everything from scientific papers, to song lyrics, to professional conferences, to children's conversations.
The use of the term is purely to denigrate the person by vaguely deriding the values that they've presented as the basis for their argument.
If you use the term you've chosen to argue against the character of the person, and not against the content of their statements.
I don't agree. The way I normally see it used, "virtue signaling" refers to a pretty specific phenomenon where you go out of your way to make sure people know you hold the correct moral views. It can occur in pretty much every form of communication, but it's far from universal.
I thought the GP's comment was the best I'd read in a while on HN, but you're right that it refers to a more specific phenomenon. The GP nailed it, though, with
> The use of the term is purely to denigrate the person by vaguely deriding the values that they've presented as the basis for their argument.
– which is the way it normally seems to me used on here. Someone says X, then someone else who doesn't share the feeling that made them say X, accuses them of virtue signalling. It's a bad faith, hostile thing to say - you wouldn't talk to your friends like that.
It seems similar somehow to a term we have in Australia, a bleeding heart, applied by someone on the political right to someone on the political left who expresses, for example, sympathy with poor people or mentally-ill people. To someone without those sympathies, it will sound like the person is faking that emotion, being "politically correct", just saying what they think they should, morally, and not sincerely expressing how they feel, since the person on the right doesn't share that emotion. Such people are called bleeding hearts. (...I just looked at your comments and see you're in Oz too. Hi!)
Actually, we (you, me, GP) are talking about two different things - one is the alleged signalling itself, which your definition describes. The other is the act of labelling something as virtue signalling, which the GP describes in the part I quoted. And like 'hater', 'whining', etc, people may be haters, may whine, but saying that to their face is an unfriendly, bad faith move. No-one feels they are a hater, or whining, or virtue signalling. They feel they're doing something else, and you're presenting your guess that they're wrong about that as a certain diagnosis. You claim to see clearly what they can't see at all.
Seems to me, the use of the term "virtue signalling" as a weapon in a fight/debate is itself a pungent form of virtue signalling, and is the main one that bothers me! It attempts to signal that one is above virtue signalling, and like "You can trust me!" or "I'm not racist", raises its own doubts about that, for me at least. I don't like the term, avoid using it, and don't think it does any good.
Which brings me to my so-called Arsehole Theory of the World - that those who spend their lives calling others arseholes, are themselves arseholes. Those who often call other people idiots, are idiots etc. It's not easy to be human and not a hypocrite. Easier to tell the other guy he's one.
"A man should be very sure that he himself is not what he has always in his mouth." – Hazlitt, On Nicknames
> a bleeding heart ... who expresses, for example, sympathy with poor people or mentally-ill people. To someone without those sympathies, it will sound like the person is faking that emotion, .. since the person on the right doesn't share that emotion.
You've essentially redefined that word/phrase to imply that anyone using it is unsympathetic, which is very convenient to anyone who finds themselves accused of being one. It reminds me of definitions of SJW at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior - the first two seems accurate, then the last one is:
> Allegra Ringo in Vice writes that "in other words, SJWs don't hold strong principles, but they pretend to. The problem is, that's not a real category of people. It's simply a way to dismiss anyone who brings up social justice."
Allegra essentially redefines SJW as meaningless, by claiming that such people don't actually exist - that the phrase is purely a dismissal of Social Justice. Problem is, people who use the term don't believe that, and while it can be used, disingenuously, or erroneously to dismiss Social-Justice, the unproven claim it makes about a person is what defines its formal meaning, and not whether that claim is accurate or not. As such, you can't say "this claim is never true, therefore this term means something different" - atheists still understand what "heaven" means, even if they don't believe it exists - this is how meaning and usage differ, even though there is a complicated relationship between the two.
Now consider that "such people don't actually exist" is a claim or belief, well use of the phrase "SJW" implies the exact opposite, it requires they exist to be meaningful (well, not really, you can still talk about angels and unicorns abstractly, but in this case we are applying it as a label to a real person) so redefining the word is as unnecessary as an atheist redefining "god" - they can still talk about the term, but instead simply switch to the crux of the conversation: that they don't believe in the basis of the phrase.
So by all means, ask for evidence a person accused of virtue signalling is being disingenuous, but don't gaslight phrase itself.
As for the aspect of tone e.g. calling someone a "whiner" etc. It think in that case the insult "whine" comes from the fact that words like "complain" exist, meaning the accuser purposefully chose a more insulting word to use i.e. tone
Perhaps there are less insulting phrases than "virtue signal" e.g. "disingenuous", but I'm not sure. I can't think of an equivalent to "SJW" (I think there should be one, it's becoming as meaningless as "racist"), but I think there is a greater context to consider; there are terms that are partisan, SJW has a right bias, "mansplain" has a left bias (and isn't obviously any different from "arrogant", except with the gendered implication that it applies to men). It seems to me impossible or unfair to police tone without doing it in a bipartisan way, but anyone trying to do so usually leans one way or the other, hence "tone-policing" usually ends up as "tone-of-other-policing".
I think before we get to that stage we need to agree on what level we are discussing at, and what phrases, on both sides, are not useful to that level. And one thing is clear; public politics operates at a level way lower than we might want.
I'd also mention, as a tangent, Trump lowered the tone of public political discourse, but it wasn't great before - if anything he disabused some of the notion that it ever was; I'd argue that he was the first politician to drop the pretence of high-quality public discourse unashamedly cheat and lie. But Trump didn't break anything, he just advanced things to their inevitable conclusion; It was divisive politics that put him in the WH in the first place, no surprise he now promotes it - removing Trump will slow the advance of divisive politics, but it won't stop growing, or even accelerating. In fact, it may be more accurate to describe Trump as phenomena resulting from high division in society, rather than as a cause of division - as such removing Trump without reducing division, or causes of division, will just be an exercise in waiting for the next Trump.
> You've essentially redefined that word/phrase to imply that anyone using it is unsympathetic
I don't think I've redefined it. That's how it seems to me and, I guess, others on the left. To those on the right the definition would be necessarily different, I guess "people who pretend to feel sympathy with poor people etc." I just think the people who I've heard it aimed at aren't pretending to have such feelings, thus the definition I gave first is the accurate one. The phrase seems a way to try to mask deficiencies in your own character by accusing others of lying/pretence, consciously or not.
Sorry, I don't know enough about SJWs or SJW-labellers to really understand the rest of your comment – neither are at all impressive, and I try not to hear, see or say anything about Trump, fairly successfully so far.
Thinking about it more: I probably think the people I've heard "bleeding hearts" aimed at aren't pretending, because I share their emotions. And if I didn't, I might well think they're just pretending.
> The term "virtue signalling" is a derogatory term for something that every person does in pretty much every form of communication.
There are different virtues though. A lot of online debate is between those who want to signal intelligence and those who want to signal morality. I'm on the former side, as intelligence signaling gave us civilization, while morality signaling is mostly about painting targets on people.
In many ways, morality is an emergent phenomenon of intelligence. It takes intelligence to come up with nuclear / chemical / biological weapons, but it takes morality to avoid their use. You could say that this particular morality is based on game theory, but you could also say that people, in general, don't want to hurt other people. The reality is going to be some mish-mash of states between those two theories.
Virtue signalling as a concept may be about advertising morality, but that morality is probably going to be informed by intelligence.
Let's assume that in any given debate interaction each side starts with n points. If you "virtue signal" you gain zero points, if you make a fact based / logical argument you gain 2 points. If you make a non-fact based/ illogical argument, you lose 2 points, and if you make and ad-hominem / derogatory comment you lose 1 point.
You can win this debate by a combination of insults and facts, but you'll win it faster without the insults.
Conversely, you'll lose the debate really quickly by not presenting any facts / logic, and only resorting to insults.
Just as "virtue signalling" is not the same as virtue, "intelligence signalling" is not the same as intelligence. Some would say it's the latter that "gave us civilization".
Sure, though signaling high intelligence could actually be the main use of intelligence, if it's a Fisherian runaway. And it's plausible that such use led to civilization: figuring out a beautiful theory feels purposeful in the same way as building a beautiful nest.
etc. My own metric for an "derogatory" would be "does this person apply this (negative?) label to themselves, or does some (antagonistic) other apply it?". That's not to say all labels a person doesn't apply to themselves is inaccurate, just that applying it is antagonistic so there should probably be a higher standard of definition, evidence and relevance in using it.
Quite a few of the above terms invoke what is often called "identity politics" which fits the description "argue against the character of the person, and not against the content of their statements" - although less "character" and more "demographic".
That said, "virtue signal" more accurately attacks a persons motivation, not just their character; Ad-homs aren't necessarily bad, if a persons motivations are relevant.
In summary, I disagree VS should never to be used; it is a derogatory term, but if accurate, and relevant, there's no reason not to use it. This differs from terms that are pure insults which generally lack enough meaningful information to be relevant, e.g. bitch, jerk, etc which don't really mean anything other than a pure expression of disapproval/negativity; of course, what level of accuracy meets the condition "relevant" depends on the nature/resolution of the conversation, and the context in which the word is used - in much the same way that "light-years" is a relevant unit for space travel, but not for land travel.
micro-societies decide if something is a derogatory term, and there is no uniform micro-society.
Some people will wear the labels of "Nazi", "racist" or "alt-right" with pride. The terms aren't to do with "identity politics", they're to do with objective damage to the over-all society in which they live. Can you provide any evidence of the over-all positive effects of Nazism, racism or the alt-right? If so, then we can debate those. (Sorry, I'm avoiding "mansplain" and "TERF" as I'm a male and can't really add anything of authoritative substance to those debates, but can only listen and learn.)
> Ad-homs aren't necessarily bad, if a persons motivations are relevant
Ad-homs are a zero signal. They amount to nothing except to lower the likelihood of the person you're talking to responding to you. If you're of the belief that you win the argument because you had the last say, then that can be a satisfactory strategy, but it's not really helping anyone in the long run.
> some people will wear the labels of "Nazi", "racist" or "alt-right" with pride
But that isn't relevant to all situations. If you call someone a label they do not attach to themselves, the fact that other people willingly accept that label isn't relevant. In fact, it would be a case of trying to associate a person with a group they do not belong to (or do not self-identify with).
> they're to do with objective damage to the over-all society in which they live
In which who live? Actual, self-confessed "Nazis", or people labelled as such by their enemies?
> I'm avoiding "mansplain" and "TERF" as I'm a male and can't really add anything of authoritative substance to those debates, but can only listen and learn
Who does have "authoritative substance"? If you don't consider yourself qualified (or permitted) to comment because you are male, there's your "identity-politics". This is especially pertinent in the case of "mansplain", since it is a label usually used to attack men.
> Ad-homs are a zero signal .. If you're of the belief that you win the argument because you had the last say
I'm not sure what you believe an "ad-hom" to be, but I take the definition "attacking a person versus their arguments" - which is relevant in case of argument from authority when a person lacks the authority they are invoking (which is also an ad-hom), or any situation where a persons status or reputation is seen as boosting their argument e.g. pointing out hypocrisy; since political debates are usually about a person being given some kind of position of power, their person is usually relevant. Also, any situation where personal judgement, or testimony given that trust is relevant in those situation, so any reason to think someone is compromised, biased, or untrustworthy is relevant.
