The term “virtue signaling” is a pet peeve of mine. Like the word “problematic” it’s too vague and broad to be useful. The implication seems to usually be that it’s all talk and no action. But if we’re talking, as we are now, that’s completely separate from my actions. Like, if I say “pollution is bad” and don’t do anything in my life to reduce pollution that’s virtue signaling, but it’s not if I’ve dedicated my life to reducing global pollution? How are you supposed to know what I have or have not done in real life during this convo.
So either virtue signaling applies anytime someone expresses an opinion about something moral, in which case it’s a useless truism. Or it’s meant to express doubt or challenge someone to prove that they take action, in which case who owes you proof?
Putting a statement of support for a cause in your open source repo may or may not have any direct impact, but it is personal expression - and in general I am for personal expression.
I’m for signal, not noise. I don’t want stupid personal expressions, I want meaningful or beautiful or somehow useful.
I used to work with a person who would raise their hand in every presentation and say “security is important how is this software secure” even when it wasn’t anywhere remotely relevant. It was counterproductive and distracting and wasted valuable time that we could use to do something better.
> I don’t want stupid personal expressions, I want meaningful or beautiful or somehow useful.
I guess I feel that improving our world, ending war, making our society more just and fair, these are meaningful, useful, and beautiful things to do. They might be some of the most meaningful things actually.
> It was counterproductive and distracting and wasted valuable time that we could use to do something better.
This is an argument about context. Security IS important, I imagine we'd both agree, but maybe not in that specific situation. Like if I bring up climate change while we're rushing to the hospital after a car accident. Climate change is a real and important issue, but right now it's a distraction. So is an open source website an inappropriate context to indicate support for movements or disapproval of others? I don't think so, but if you do calling it "virtue signaling" isn't what you mean, and is actually a counterproductive distraction.
None of the signalling achieves anything. Its annoying, the signalling people really stand out. Seeing them doing the "Notice me, I'm standing for the right thing, im a good person!"-move makes me cringe. I wish they would stop.
This is just false. Some signaling achieves nothing, but there's plenty of signaling that has caused individuals to change their behavior, politicians to pass laws, and corporations to change their products. The thing is it's basically impossible to tell which is the useful signaling and which is shouting into the void, even as the person signaling the signals. Which drop filled the bucket?
You seem to find it annoying because you think it's being done just to SEEM good, rather than to BE good... but when it comes to issues we don't have direct control of, there's not much difference. I can ACT on my belief that texting and driving is a terrible thing to do all I want, but it doesn't stop anyone else from doing it. The only small piece of influence I have over others is to signal that I believe it's wrong whenever it's appropriate. That and lobby for tougher fines (by signaling to politicians) and technological solutions (again, by signaling to corporations).
None of this is to say you can't criticize specific gestures as being empty - but to say signaling is always empty is just false.
> I guess I feel that improving our world, ending war, making our society more just and fair, these are meaningful, useful, and beautiful things to do. They might be some of the most meaningful things actually.
I feel that way too. I want all those things. Adding “FreeUkraine” or “BLM” doesn’t do that. I don’t think virtue signaling is that big of a problem, but adding these phrases does nothing more than signal.
I don’t think it’s productive to call out virtual signaling in that I would never submit a PR to complain or remove. But I definitely notice it and it seems stupid. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it but a second or two while reading docs doesn’t make me think more highly of someone.
I think cynically it just seems like people say this instead of doing meaningful things.
One thing you might be coloring your perception, is the lack of visibility into other actions. Just because a person posts #blm and it’s largely a symbolic gesture and doesn’t have a big impact, doesn’t mean they didn’t take other more tangible steps - donations, calling their representatives, boycotts, etc. but you wouldn’t know about those. So every time you see the gesture you see inaction, when sometimes the gesture is just the tip of an iceberg of dedicated action.
I don't think signaling my beliefs ever will change anyone's mind.
However, I've gotten a lot of feedback from friends of mine that signalling my support for their cause or identity has made them feel more comfortable in the world.
While I agree with you on broad strokes, I'm sure, somewhere, someday, somebodies concerns over the security implications of a logging framework (e.g. Log4J) were brushed under the table by a statement like that.
I think security is extremely important (as is BLM), my issue in this example is that the person brought up security as questions where it was not relevant. I think that actually hurts security as it made people tune out because it wasn’t relevant. So it was like the boy who cried wolf in that when security was important it wasn’t paid attention to.
I’m not saying that security reviews shouldn’t be performed. They should. Security should be part of design and code review. But it’s not a relevant question in every single situation.
So either virtue signaling applies anytime someone expresses an opinion about something moral, in which case it’s a useless truism. Or it’s meant to express doubt or challenge someone to prove that they take action, in which case who owes you proof?
Putting a statement of support for a cause in your open source repo may or may not have any direct impact, but it is personal expression - and in general I am for personal expression.