[1] tbh I don’t think you do, but I like the analogy so I’m keeping it.
I've actually had to climb one tree to cut down another.
EDIT: Er, I agree that hypocrisy shouldn't stop you from doing the right thing.
A false premise. If that were true, just like you stated, we wouldn't support it. Actions speak louder than words, and all that.
EDIT: I realize I sound far more judge-y than intended in these posts. My overall point is that people should just do whatever makes 'em happy while doing the best you can (w.r.t. everything else). Trying to emphasize the morality in your actions is just wrong, imo.
Taking the child labor thing into account, never being brand new electronics again would pretty much take care of that. One could make an argument that buying used goods is still supporting child labor, but I'd argue it's a sunk cost.
Why choose this example? Child labour is rife in many sectors, particularly textiles.
It's also rampant in electronics recycling[0]. So even if you never buy any new electronics, you're complicit when you dispose of your old electronics.
The point is you shouldn't allow an impossible quest for perfect ideological consistency and moral purity to prevent you from doing good on a imperfect, inconsistent scale.
[0] http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/india-rising-tide-e-wast...
Two wrongs don’t make a right when you try to sum them, I.e. combine them. My point is: don’t compare them at all. Don’t change the subject. Uber is one, other things are another. Being a hypocrite doesn’t make you wrong, it just makes you a hypocrite. Don’t even pull in the other wrong to begin with.
Otherwise, how do you ever justify standing up for anything you believe in? I was born a hypocrite, surely a life of mute acquiescence can’t be my destiny?
Consistency isn't impossible at all. People are already very consistent in doing what simply is convenient for them. In the case of Uber vs. Lyft, if you live in an area where they're priced similarly and are of similar service it's easy to switch to one or the other under the guise of trying to do the right thing, or whatever.
Not using Uber hardly requires any effort. What, ten seconds to uninstall an app and install the alternative one?
That's just, like, your opinion, man.
I care up to certain thresholds. Last year my Uber use was probably 90%, Lyft 10%. Now that's flipped. I only use Uber if I'm outside the US and there's no comparable local alternative.
Uber is demonstrably making less money than it used to because I do this, and Lyft is making more. I'm personally happy with that arrangement, and honestly my feelings here are the only ones that matter. I don't particularly care if you think I'm just "virtue signaling" or if I'm "not doing enough" or whatever.
Dunno what I was thinking, I was totally in the wrong. Apologies if any offense was taken.
"Virtue signaling" is an annoying, low-effort way of dismissing something. Try harder. You haven't even provided any evidence. Here's an alternative proposal: People like doing things that they believe will make the world a better place, within their money/time/inconvenience budget, in ways that are limited by their attention. They're human - they have limited attention, limited capacity for simultaneously optimizing hundreds of metrics, and many competing demands that they're trying to satisfy, so they're not going to be perfectly consistent.
No, one person uninstalling Uber is not a massive blow against evil. But many people uninstalling it has been enough to send a pretty powerful signal that -- in conjunction with a lot of concurrent social and legal factors -- is causing Uber to do a pretty solid about-face.
(And it's not seconds, because depending on where you are, Uber may have many more drivers than Lyft -- people travel, after all, so even if Lyft is equal in your home market, it's not equal everywhere. You're also losing the prospect of alternating apps when one or the other is in surge pricing. If you're a heavy user of ride-sharing services, uninstalling Uber imposes both a time and monetary cost.)
Kudos to the GP and others for uninstalling Uber. And for every other step they've taken to try to improve the world by their own actions.
Dans ses écrits, un sage Italien Dit que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.
(In his writings, a wise Italian says that the better is the enemy of good.)
-- Voltaire
So yes, it is virtue signalling, pretty much by definition -- "the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue." That being said, I don't think virtue signalling is bad. In fact, it's virtue signalling that has led to the pressure on Uber that brought about this very discussion.
---
As an aside, I didn't realize "virtue signalling" was such a bad word, as well as "hypocrisy." I guess I'll have to stop using those words.
> people don't actually care. It's just virtue signaling.
You're making claims about their underlying motivation, and dismissing their actions as just virtue signaling.
"They're not doing A, they're only doing B"
Showing the presence of B is not sufficient to demonstrate the absence of A.
Second, you haven't actually shown that they're virtue signaling. Note that your definition specifically includes intent: "publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character" -- the OP could be expressing their sentiments publicly in order to induce others to follow suit, for example. The same post admits many possible explanations, and you are in no position to read the mind of the posters in order to divine their intent. You're making assumptions, but you again haven't presented any evidence to suggest that your hypothesis is better than any others.
> You're making claims about their underlying motivation, and dismissing their actions as just virtue signaling.
This is true.
> Showing the presence of B is not sufficient to demonstrate the absence of A.
This is also true.
> Second, you haven't actually shown that they're virtue signaling. Note that your definition specifically includes intent: "publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character" -- the OP could be expressing their sentiments publicly in order to induce others to follow suit, for example. The same post admits many possible explanations, and you are in no position to read the mind of the posters in order to divine their intent. You're making assumptions, but you again haven't presented any evidence to suggest that your hypothesis is better than any others.
Indeed, though, with respect to this there's no evidence -- save the person themselves stating that's what they intended -- that I could present that would be sufficient.
Overall I regret my original post and the ensuing posts, since ironically, my original intent was far less aggressive than is implied by the responses.
Oh well, live and learn.
Your profile says "Contact me" but there's no contact info.
(It also says: “if you're going to claim something, please cite!” :) )
That saying... doesn't even apply here.
Being consistent in all you do is hard. Doing 5 "bad" things instead of 10 "bad" things is certainly better.
I agree with your overall point, though.
In any case, you're right. There is no conflict. Just hypocrisy.
EDIT: I realize I sound far more judge-y than intended in these posts. My overall point is that people should just do whatever makes 'em happy while doing the best you can (w.r.t. everything else). Trying to emphasize the morality in your actions is just wrong, imo.
It's a ridiculous comparison. Leaving the country is a lot more difficult than changing ride share apps. It's not hypocritical to take the low-hanging ethical fruit, even if you don't do the harder stuff. In any case, living in a country doesn't imply that you support everything its government does. If anything, the ethical course of action is to stay and try to change things.
This number doesn't account for countless millions, if not the majority of Americans who drain more from the government in the form of services, subsidies, and assistance than they pay in taxes (and I'm not suggesting this is necessarily a bad thing).
Presumably they want friends to switch over as to not support an organization they disagree with, but my point was that doing so is pretty much impossible to begin with. If the goal is to not support organizations that do things you disagree with it's futile.
Therefore, one should just decide arbitrarily. It really doesn't matter.
[1] https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-holds-the-world-record-of-...
EDIT: I realize I sound far more judge-y than intended in these posts. My overall point is that people should just do whatever makes 'em happy while doing the best you can (w.r.t. everything else). Trying to emphasize the morality in your actions is just wrong, imo.