I don’t care to defend empty “cheap talk” signals, but the best virtue signals offer some proof of their claim by being difficult to fake.
“Cheap talk” isn’t the only kind of virtue signaling that can go bad. During the Cultural Revolution, “cheap talk” would have been to chant slogans with everyone else, whereas “real” virtue signals (that are difficult to fake) would have been to physically pick up a knife and stab the “reactionary” professor, or pick up a gun and shoot at the “enemies of the revolution” (e.g., other factions of Red Guards).
To me, the biggest problem with virtue signaling is the ever-present possibility of the underlying social dynamics (that drives people to virtue signal) spiraling out of control and causing more harm than good, sometimes horrendous amounts of harm as in cases like the Cultural Revolution. At the same time, I have to acknowledge (like I did in this post) that without virtue signaling, civilization itself probably wouldn’t exist. I think ideally we’d study and succeed in understanding the dynamics and then use that understanding to keep an optimal balance where we can take advantage of the positive side effects of virtue signaling while keeping the harmful ones at bay.
“Cheap talk” isn’t the only kind of virtue signaling that can go bad. During the Cultural Revolution, “cheap talk” would have been to chant slogans with everyone else, whereas “real” virtue signals (that are difficult to fake) would have been to physically pick up a knife and stab the “reactionary” professor, or pick up a gun and shoot at the “enemies of the revolution” (e.g., other factions of Red Guards).
To me, the biggest problem with virtue signaling is the ever-present possibility of the underlying social dynamics (that drives people to virtue signal) spiraling out of control and causing more harm than good, sometimes horrendous amounts of harm as in cases like the Cultural Revolution. At the same time, I have to acknowledge (like I did in this post) that without virtue signaling, civilization itself probably wouldn’t exist. I think ideally we’d study and succeed in understanding the dynamics and then use that understanding to keep an optimal balance where we can take advantage of the positive side effects of virtue signaling while keeping the harmful ones at bay.