3 ms·

Firstly, please let me know which rock you've been living under for the last ~8 years to not know what 'virtue signalling' means, it sounds awesome and I would

Firstly, please let me know which rock you've been living under for the last ~8 years to not know what 'virtue signalling' means, it sounds awesome and I would like to join you under there. Anyway, the insinuation is that they don't actually believe they can reduce the rate of AI contribution via such a statement, but that they're doing it just for the sake of showing everyone that they're on the anti-AI side of the fence, which indeed does seem to have become some sort of ideological signpost for a certain group of people.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> Firstly, please let me know which rock you've been living under for the last ~8 years to not know what 'virtue signalling' means, it sounds awesome and I would like to join you under there. On the other hand it's been my experience that the only people using it unironically as a term are the sorts of people I don't want to talk to for any appreciable length of time, and them self-identifying by using it is extremely handy for me personally. It's like the reverse Nigerian prince email scam, as soon as someone drops "virtue signaling" I know to immediately disengage lest I be exposed to toxic and deranged opinions that are both low effort and boring to hear litigated.
- exe34 2y ago
  To save me from having to remember your name, please add me to your list of people who use the phrase "virtue signalling" unironically, even if I do so sparingly.
lucb1e 2y ago
I suppose I'm one of today's lucky ten thousand. Join any time, the only requirement is learning something new every day! > some sort of ideological signpost for a certain group of people. That feels about as laden and insinuating as the formerly religious term from above. Do you think it's not okay to state that a method of creating works may not be used when one believes it to be (*checks the reasons given in the article*) potentially illegal under copyright, unethical in various ways (not sure how to summarize that), as well as exceedingly difficult to get quality output from? One of those reasons seem to me like it would be enough to use as grounds, with the only potentially subjective one being the ethics which would leave two other reasons I don't have a strong opinion on the ban, in case it seems that way. The reasons make sense to me so while I'm not opposed either, I'm also not a fan of selective enforcement that this runs a risk of, and the world moves on (progress is hard to halt). Perhaps there's an "AI" tool that can be ethical and free of copyright claims, and then the resulting work can be judged by its own merit to resolve the quality concern. So I don't really have a solid opinion either way, it just doesn't seem bad to me to make a statement for what one believes to be right Edit: perhaps I should bring this back to the original question. Is this virtue signaling if (per my understanding) it is genuine? I've scarcely known open source people (Gentoo isn't corporate, afaik) to have ulterior motives so, to me, the claim feels a bit... negative towards a group trying to do good, I guess?
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  The accusation of virtue signaling is completely non-falsifiable, at least until such time as an organization has documents leaked showing that they actually hate whatever group but are going to openly signal that they love them to increase sales, which hasn't yet happened. Instead what does seem to happen quite often is that virtue signaling as an accusation is deployed against a very minor and token gesture of vague social progressiveness or some other ethical position on the part of an entity, usually a business, and the charge is levied at them by people who disagree with whatever stance has been taken. It's not hard to draw a line from this back to the rhetoric around various social issues in recent memory, going back to Nixon's famous "silent majority" concept; that most people agree with the thing you think, as a reactionary, but are "afraid" to say it; it's literally the same thing, the leadership of whatever org is criticized for acting in bad faith and invoking whatever cause, because they couldn't possibly just actually believe in it, it obviously must be a ruse. I apologize if this is more political than HN likes to get, but it's simply not possible to disentangle the phrase "virtue signaling" from specific kinds of reactionary politics. As to why it's now being deployed in a discussion about AI, I don't particularly think it's a 100% rock solid link to it, but it's one of those things, if one sees smoke, one isn't found wrong if they assume fire. Anyway that was a lot to say it's pointless culture war bullshit, please keep your innocence.
JohnFen 2y ago
Making a rule that is difficult to enforce isn't virtue signalling at all. It's adding a rule that is expected to be adhered to just like the other rules. It's useful to say outright what the expectations and requirements of contributions are. Actual "virtue signalling" is espousing a position that you don't really believe in because you think it makes you look good.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

> Firstly, please let me know which rock you've been living under for the last ~8 years to not know what 'virtue signalling' means, it sounds awesome and I would like to join you under there. On the other hand it's been my experience that the only people using it unironically as a term are the sorts of people I don't want to talk to for any appreciable length of time, and them self-identifying by using it is extremely handy for me personally. It's like the reverse Nigerian prince email scam, as soon as someone drops "virtue signaling" I know to immediately disengage lest I be exposed to toxic and deranged opinions that are both low effort and boring to hear litigated.

exe34 2y ago
To save me from having to remember your name, please add me to your list of people who use the phrase "virtue signalling" unironically, even if I do so sparingly.

lucb1e 2y ago

I suppose I'm one of today's lucky ten thousand. Join any time, the only requirement is learning something new every day! > some sort of ideological signpost for a certain group of people. That feels about as laden and insinuating as the formerly religious term from above. Do you think it's not okay to state that a method of creating works may not be used when one believes it to be (*checks the reasons given in the article*) potentially illegal under copyright, unethical in various ways (not sure how to summarize that), as well as exceedingly difficult to get quality output from? One of those reasons seem to me like it would be enough to use as grounds, with the only potentially subjective one being the ethics which would leave two other reasons I don't have a strong opinion on the ban, in case it seems that way. The reasons make sense to me so while I'm not opposed either, I'm also not a fan of selective enforcement that this runs a risk of, and the world moves on (progress is hard to halt). Perhaps there's an "AI" tool that can be ethical and free of copyright claims, and then the resulting work can be judged by its own merit to resolve the quality concern. So I don't really have a solid opinion either way, it just doesn't seem bad to me to make a statement for what one believes to be right Edit: perhaps I should bring this back to the original question. Is this virtue signaling if (per my understanding) it is genuine? I've scarcely known open source people (Gentoo isn't corporate, afaik) to have ulterior motives so, to me, the claim feels a bit... negative towards a group trying to do good, I guess?

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
The accusation of virtue signaling is completely non-falsifiable, at least until such time as an organization has documents leaked showing that they actually hate whatever group but are going to openly signal that they love them to increase sales, which hasn't yet happened. Instead what does seem to happen quite often is that virtue signaling as an accusation is deployed against a very minor and token gesture of vague social progressiveness or some other ethical position on the part of an entity, usually a business, and the charge is levied at them by people who disagree with whatever stance has been taken. It's not hard to draw a line from this back to the rhetoric around various social issues in recent memory, going back to Nixon's famous "silent majority" concept; that most people agree with the thing you think, as a reactionary, but are "afraid" to say it; it's literally the same thing, the leadership of whatever org is criticized for acting in bad faith and invoking whatever cause, because they couldn't possibly just actually believe in it, it obviously must be a ruse. I apologize if this is more political than HN likes to get, but it's simply not possible to disentangle the phrase "virtue signaling" from specific kinds of reactionary politics. As to why it's now being deployed in a discussion about AI, I don't particularly think it's a 100% rock solid link to it, but it's one of those things, if one sees smoke, one isn't found wrong if they assume fire. Anyway that was a lot to say it's pointless culture war bullshit, please keep your innocence.

JohnFen 2y ago

Making a rule that is difficult to enforce isn't virtue signalling at all. It's adding a rule that is expected to be adhered to just like the other rules. It's useful to say outright what the expectations and requirements of contributions are. Actual "virtue signalling" is espousing a position that you don't really believe in because you think it makes you look good.