> - Virtue signaling is a critical component to personal and social moral growth. Showing where you stand and putting your money where you mouth is necessary to decentralize authority and improve the standards that are "baked" into society. Otherwise you're just appealing to whoever has the biggest stick.

I was under the impression the virtue signalling specifically requires insincerity.

For example, if you inject yourself into a conversation to lecture everyone about what a great ally you are (and you don't even really mean it), that is virtue signaling.

If you try to make it all about yourself, and assert completely risk free opinions that challenge nothing, that is virtue signalling.

Simply sharing and asserting your values doesn't have to be virtue signalling.

> - That people misapply a legitimate action or are overzealous in its application doesn't mean the underlying idea is wrong. The Internet is still quite young and its inviting a global confrontation of how to deal with deeply-seated social problems. Expecting this new-found power to be wielded without making mistakes is unrealistic.

Nobody objects to the underlying idea of witch hunting. If there were actual witches that were using magic powers to poison the town, of course we should have an inquisitor to hunt them down.

This has only ever been a discussion about tactics.