> What more do you want?

Apparently, "they" will moan loudly about being silenced until everyone else has stopped saying things they don't like.

(using "they" as a vague, undefined term, after seeing such a widespread use of "we" in this thread).

Huh? Calls that a speaker, typically while speaking through a digital megaphone to a large audience, is being silenced is a stereotypically red tribe behavior.

Silenced requires a someone to take active steps to do the silencing. At best this is just people choosing to not listen. If you want the blue tribe jab it's got to be something like "they will keep trying to call everyone racists until people stop saying thing they don't like."

> But to accuse someone of "virtue signaling" is a political attack that requires evidence.

What kind of "evidence" beyond the content of the signalling itself it would require? I mean, sure one could make a detailed critique of the article to show why exactly it fits the term very well (TLDR version would be it tries to police the well-understood usage of the term that describes real phenomenon and is useful to prevent imaginary offenses) but it wouldn't be "evidence" - it does not introduce any new facts, only one's opinion. The only factual "evidence" necessary is the content of the article, which is already here.

> Is that not enough for you?

Not even beginning to be close to being enough. Winning would be going back to the times where you can discuss political topic without fear of your life being ruined and your livelihood being taken away from you. Winning would be where there aren't thousands of people actively searching to hurt other people for disagreeing with them. Winning would be not having dozens of people in a lot of corporations specifically paid obscene money for pushing idpol. Winning would be forgetting the meaning of the word "cancelled" that we learned in the last decade. Winning would be for the culture to change so that trying to hurt people for disagreeing would be shameful, not praised. We may have hope for it to happen one day, but we're not even close to being true now. It may take years or decades - just it it took decades for "woke nonsense" to take root in the culture - and may very well not happen at all, any election results nonwithstanding.

> What kind of "evidence" beyond the content of the signalling itself it would require?

"Virtue signaling" means someone is acting only to signal their own virtue, and not because they actually believe in the thing they are doing or expressing.

There is no evidence of that.

> "Virtue signaling" means someone is acting only to signal their own virtue, and not because they actually believe in the thing they are doing or expressing.

[Emphasis altered -- CRC.]

Really? I never knew it had to be a necessary part of it, that they don't believe in [whatever]. Are you sure that's part of the general definition, and not just something you made up?

Even if you do believe in something, if you keep preening yourself in sanctimony about how virtuous you are for believing in it -- what is that, then, if not virtue signaling?

Not because they actually believe in. i.e. they may, but that's not the reason they're taking the action.

European here, so please don't shoot the messenger. I personally see no "political attack" in calling something "virtue signalling". In fact I'm amazed you'd think it's a political attack.

So, because of that I went and checked the definition. Merriam says:

> : the act or practice of conspicuously displaying one's awareness of and attentiveness to political issues, matters of social and racial justice, etc., especially instead of taking effective action

So I learned something today, that virtue signalling can refer to political issues. I guess on this side of the pond I was more used to it applying to social posturing.

Anyway, that being said, I do feel that the "two party" thing you guys have going there is leading to this increased polarisation and radicalisation, especially online. If you think someone using "virtue signalling" is "attacking your side", you're literally viewing them as "the enemy". "Your side won". That can't be healthy for you. There's a lot of nuance between "your side" and "their side".

“Virtue signaling” is somewhat of a loaded term because it tends to be used by one ideological tendency to dismiss others. A phrase that’s on the surface neutral but is in of itself politicized, like “homicide bomber” in the ‘00s.

Thank you. I kinda got that from the context, I guess I'm a bit amused by why the OP went straight to "oh, you're using that term then you must be <the other side>", when there's plenty of (what I would call) virtue signalling on the "right" as well. "Respect the troops" (while defunding VA), "flags, jesus, stickers on cars", "It's merry christmas not happy holidays" and so on and so forth.

Ironically, imho the use of the term virtue signaling has itself become a virtue signal, as I pointed out… seven years ago??

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15069187