> It's very difficult to use the concept > of "virtue signaling" as a rhetorical > weapon without conceding a whole lot > of personal credibility. It's t

> It's very difficult to use the concept > of "virtue signaling" as a rhetorical > weapon without conceding a whole lot > of personal credibility. It's telling that you drop three paragraphs in response to a throwaway comment. You're seizing the opportunity to take the weakest example of a 'virtue-signalling' comment so you can argue against it as if it is an exemplar. You're unfortunately wrong. Virtue signalling is literally about credibility [0]. And there is nothing new under the sun here. It's been seen as virtuous for a long time to do good deeds with no ulterior motives. To give money to charity but not to proclaim to everybody that you are charitable, etc. The reality is that people who have low credibility are those that feel they need to stop others from looking twice at anything. While it might not exist here, fraud is a real problem - and we need to be able to name it when we see it. ___ [0] Admittedly the Right have misunderstood and abused the concept even worse than you have: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13514437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13514437