I don't think it's necessarily cynical, though it can be deployed by cynics. Part of the reason virtue signaling feels wrong is because it's cheap advocacy wit

I don't think it's necessarily cynical, though it can be deployed by cynics. Part of the reason virtue signaling feels wrong is because it's cheap advocacy with no skin in the game, yet those who commit it feel like they've done something. Now, is this really so bad? I read a quote in Stratechery that resonated: -- "The first problem of being a society of talk, not action, is the inability to even consider hard work as a solution; The second is a blindness to the real trade-offs at play. The third, though, is the most sinister of all: if talk is all that matters, then policing talk becomes an end to itself." -- In this case, it wasn't virtue signalling. He paid the price to stand by his conviction. We may agree or disagree with his position, but we must surely honor his commitment to it.