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They are the 1%. 99% of people consider "privacy" a good value in abstract but will not lift a finger to protect their own privacy. It's virtue signalling.
by deathgrips 6y ago
They are the 1%. 99% of people consider "privacy" a good value in abstract but will not lift a finger to protect their own privacy. It's virtue signalling.
- kennywinker 6y agoI absolutely hate the term virtue signalling. It's always reductive and dismissive. If I am willing to go a LITTLE out of my way to protect my privacy, but not a LOT out of my way, am I "just virtue signalling"? If I continue to use a privacy-less platform (e.g. zoom/instagram/facebook) but just exercise caution with what I say using that medium, is that also "just virtue signalling"? I agree, evidence shows most people are not willing to go very far out of their way to defend their privacy. But I also think privacy is a genuine virtue, and a desire for it is present and often untapped. Why else would Apple have run privacy-centric ad campaigns? Attempting to tap into the weak but widespread desire for privacy, I think Also, side note, lgbtq people make up somewhere in the range of 2-7% of the population, not 1%.
- Arbalest 6y agohttps://www.adamsmith.org/blog/stop-saying-virtue-signalling https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/stop-saying-virtue-signalling
- rconti 6y ago100% agreed. It's almost exclusively used as an ad hominem by people who lack that particular virtue to dismiss people who espouse a caring viewpoint. If you want to argue that your target does less to further that particular cause than you do, fine. If you want to argue the cause is misguided, fine. But using the term is just lazy.
- senderista 6y agoIt’s like “PC” or “fake news”, it was originally meaningful but got co-opted by people who use it in bad faith.
- cameronbrown 6y agoJust curious: Fake news was coined by Trump, so you're agreeing it was a meaningful usage?
- stonogo 6y agoIronically, it was not coined by Trump. https://twitter.com/CraigSilverman/status/522179364767924224 https://twitter.com/CraigSilverman/status/522179364767924224 and https://www.theverge.com/2014/10/22/7028983/fake-news-sites-are-using-facebook-to-spread-ebola-panic https://www.theverge.com/2014/10/22/7028983/fake-news-sites-... are good examples of its use pre-Trump. By the time Trump started applying it to actual news outlets, it was already in relatively common use.
- triangleman 6y agoThe irony runs deep in this case. The examples you point out are good ones for the term in common use through the end of 2016. Then this happened: https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/politics/hillary-clinton-fake-news-epidemic/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/politics/hillary-clinton-fake... December 2016 Hillary Clinton decides to use the term in reference to recent events like her losing the election. The media picks up on it and the term starts to lose its meaning. Then Donald Trump, always with a nose for catch phrase politics, picks up the term and runs with it, a turn of events that someone on HN called a huge "own goal" by the media, and I can't say I disagree with that assessment. For more analysis of this cultural specimen: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42724320 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42724320
- vxNsr 6y agoIt's possible that the term existed before Hillary/Trump but your examples aren't it. In your examples the word "fake" is used as an adjective to the noun "news site". As in "a fake news site". "fake news" as it used today is a noun in its own right. As in "that's fake news" See also "alternative facts".
- bawolff 6y agoIt was always dismissive. Serious people used already existing terms like propaganda or yellow journalism.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoI disagree. Metaphorically speaking, online discussion is full of literal butt-heads and having the term butt-head is valuable to have in the toolbox even if some people call everyone they don't agree with a butt-head because it's easy and they're lazy. I don't really care if we call them butt-heads or ass-hats as long as there's a more or less agreed upon word for it. Virtue signaling or whatever you want to call that sort of in-group circle jerk is fundamentally unproductive and self-rewarding because it's just a reiteration of existing group beliefs that basically everyone already knows and has. There's no term you can use to describe that behavior that will not make people uncomfortable when you call it out because at the end of the day you're calling the behavior unproductive and selfish. For example, someone goes on Reddit and asks "should I put economy tire A or economy tire B on my 20yo, $2k car, also I have $250 to spend". The most popular answers will be invariably be "you should have dedicated summer and winter tires" and "you should use jack stands when you change tires" and many duplicates thereof many of which will suggest that anyone who does not do these things is not someone of good character, deserves to rot in hell, is a burden upon society, etc, etc. Neither of these sideshows are productive discussion. Both of them serve purely to signal to the in-group that the signaler believes something the in-group already believes. Of course everybody wants the greatest tires and nobody wants a car on them but the former is not in the scope for budgetary reasons and the latter is not a concern when simply changing tires never-mind that installing tires usually adds no cost over having them put on rims. The people circle jerking it to jack stands and fancy tires are negatively affecting the discussion for anyone who cared about economy tires. Virtue signaling takes legitimate relevant content and displaces it with low quality junk. I'm more technical than I am cultured but I see this kind of behavior across multiple topics and I'm sure that any serious amateur film critic, book critic, etc. probably could come up with a similar example from their niche. While that example is hypothetical you can see similar ones play out across a multitude of topics and I think this does legitimate damage to civil discourse. It's like how searching for a service manual for an appliance on the internet to yield results but now it yields a million sites that don't have what you're looking for but will try and sell you something. I see virtue signaling as having a similar quality degradation affect but on legitimate discussion. We can no-longer have detailed discussions about complex issues, regardless of subject because they all get derailed, bogged down and diluted by people showing up to signal their virtue on a higher level issue. Take for example the recent discussion about police. Many on the left and right have a litany of small points on which they agree. Any public discussion about common ground, like fewer MRAPs in the hands of suburban police departments, gets drowned out by riff raff showing up to tell the world which team they're on. At scale this is damaging to civil discourse. In conclusion, I think that having a nice, short, two-word, pop culture word to describe that behavior is useful because makes it easier for those who may not be articulate enough to otherwise do a good job call it out when they see it. Of course some people are gonna abuse it but I think that's just the nature of it being a negative thing since all negative things become a name you can call someone or their actions.
- dokem 6y agoAttempting to remove a word or phrase is exactly the kind of impractical behavior I expect from a virtue signaler. And with the annoyingly pedantic reasoning about how it's not technically signaling they way economists use the term is just the cherry on top. Virtue signaling is real, so is the misuse of the term, like every other, but so what.
- kennywinker 6y agoThis seems like pro-virtue-signalling-as-a-term virtue signalling. We get it, you want all the other people who use the term virtue signalling to like you. ALWAYS dismissive and reductive. ALWAYS. It's not a good faith argument. If you think someone is all-talk-no-action, accuse them of being performative. If you think someone's cause is dumb, attack that. You can call ANYBODY advocating for a viewpoint a virtue signaller so it is an entirely meaningless attack.
- dokem 6y agoThe idea that you can't attack someone's behavior is ridiculous. If you want to consider what i'm doing virtue signaling then go right ahead I guess.
- jeromegv 6y agoYes. You calling other people for virtue signalling is a form of virtue signalling in itself. Don’t you realize how ridiculous and useless this argument is?
- dokem 6y agoDon't you understand that I am arguing that virtue signaling is real. You saying I am virtue signaling is only agreeing with my point.
- ImprobableTruth 6y agoIn what way is there a difference between virtue signaling and performative?
- skinnymuch 6y agoThat article gives such a bad argument that I feel I have now become more pro using the term than before. All of the arguments have huge exceptions or contradict each other. Signaling being a term used by some niche fields. We have that happen all the time. It’s how language evolves. The article says to use show off instead of virtue signaling. Right after the next argument is assuming the person is disingenuous. Which is exactly what you’re doing if you say they’re showing off. The two arguments can’t both be used. They are arguments against different things.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoI think a good way to put this is: Saying 'stop saying "virtue signalling"' is virtue signalling
- BolexNOLA 6y agoAt some point we are just circling a drain of nonsense when we make points like that.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago"To an asshole, all virtue looks like virtue signaling." -- https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1273472663621529604 https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1273472663621529604
- BolexNOLA 6y agoMan you really hit the nail on the head with this. I’ve never been able to articulate why the term bothers me so much and you just absolutely nailed it. It’s like the derogatory “social justice warrior.” What? It’s bad to give a damn about people and advocate on their behalf? If having empathy means I’m “an SJW” then I’ll gladly wear that moniker.
- raxxorrax 6y agoThe social justice and warrior part once hinted at the oxymoron of enforcing solidarity with violence. It was never meant to be criticism of social justice. The dialogue that degraded just beyond nuance. The term is probably 10 years old at least. Today it probably means just left-leaning person for most people.
- imtringued 6y agoSocial justice warrior is an oxymoron. It's a way to call someone a hypocrite because those who are called SJW usually exhibit behavior that is exactly the opposite of what they claim to stand against. e.g. fight discrimination by using discrimination in a different context https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
- deathgrips 6y agoI measure virtue by how much you are willing to lose for the sake of your values or because you want to help other people. If you aren't willing to give up anything, you're not virtuous no matter what you say. Actions matter. If you say you care about privacy but do nothing to protect your privacy, you don't really care about privacy in any way that matters. Since you mildly inconvenience yourself for the sake of privacy, I can conclude based on this very limited evidence that you mildly care about privacy, which is a whole lot more than most people care about it. Apple markets itself as privacy conscious because that makes Apple look like a trustworthy company. That's a rare and beneficial appearance that a company can maintain to get more business. Not all gay people care about their privacy. Plenty live in states where they feel more free to open up to their friends, family, and neighbors.
- cutemonster 6y agoIs, would you say, virtue signaling to say something others like but not actually do something inconvenient related to that oneself?
- deathgrips 6y agoYes and more than that. It's virtue signaling to say you have some value when you have no evidence to back up that claim.
- noobermin 6y agoEvery single day I see more and more 100K liked tweets about this or that creepy person. I don't think people don't care about privacy, they just don't see the through line because it's abstract.
- SamBam 6y agoOther comments aside, this isn't even using the term "virtue signaling" correctly. They're are plenty of things that people agree with in the abstract, but don't do enough to make a difference. Probably everyone agrees that the environment should be cleaner. If I agree with that, but "don't lift a finger" to make it better, how am a virtue signaling? It's the opposite. "Virtue signaling" involves doing some token thing to get the kudos. Smugly saying you only use DDG for web searches. Putting a Tor sticker on your laptop. Etc.
- deathgrips 6y agoI don't think people become more virtuous by saying a few words and doing nothing. If you say you care about the environment but do absolutely nothing about it, you don't care in any way that matters. It's just a social signal without any impact on the world. Buying a Tor sticker doesn't promote privacy. Buying and running a Tor node does.
- shadowprofile77 6y agoIf you go out on the street to give homeless people food but your main motivation for doing it is so you can take a quick selfie for some feel-good reactions on instagram and facebook, you're definitely virtue signalling in a particularly irritating way...... But, those homeless people still got some food as a result, and somewhere else, someone else might see your posts and decide to do the same thing (with or without selfie, depending on how much of a self absorbed ass they are) Either way, the net result is that now more people are giving food to the needy in this simple example. A net benefit is produced by self absorbed behavior. When virtue signalling can become dangerous however is in situations where something based on a mistaken notion of doing good (when in reality it does more harm) becomes a fad and people who virtue-signal keep promoting it into wider popularity.
- notimetorelax 6y agoTo be pedantic LGBTQ are ~5% of the population in the US. With higher or lower numbers in the other countries. Source for the US: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Uni...
- raxxorrax 6y agoMost yes, but I don't think it is only 1%. Virtue signaling is for increasing your standing towards a social group through a feigned declaration of values. You can be sloppy with your privacy and still think it to be of utmost importance. Nobody pats you on the back for being privacy aware in the mainstream. On the contrary, it is looked down upon becuase it is associated with tin foil hats right now.