
How to Stop the Corporate Virtue-Signaling Before It’s Too Late - hkai
https://quillette.com/2018/11/13/how-to-stop-the-corporate-virtue-signaling-before-its-too-late/
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cauchyschwartz
Regardless of how one feels about the issue, the article doesn't seem to focus
on the "how" at all despite the title (at least nothing that I can see), but
rather just seems to state that Corporate Virtue-Signaling is bad.

Ok, so there is one paragraph that mentions the "Community Pluralism
Principle" and that shareholders should hold their company accountable for
politicization, then throws a pithy quote that "The social responsibility of
business is to increase its profits.”

The issue with this kind of statement is that it falsely implies that
politicization is adverse to profit. Are we to believe these companies like
Nike or Ben & Jerry's are pursuing politicization purely for social motives,
or has someone done the math to determine that this politicization can
actually translate to higher profits? Likely it's somewhere in the middle

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drcongo
What I find funny about "virtue signalling" is that it's a pejorative only the
right accuses the left of, and like the phrase "politically correct", it's
hard to take as any kind of insult. You think I'm virtuous and my politics are
correct? Well thank you very much, very kind of you to say so.

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s9w
Virtue signalling is not about being virtuous. The other, much more important
part, is the signalling. The impulse of companites/people/etc to brag about
being virtous only to appear in a better light. A bit like vegeratians who
often can't resist the temptation to tell the world that they're better.

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thecrash
Yes, at the core of the "virtue signalling" philosophy is the idea that nobody
_actually_ holds virtuous values. There are only two kinds of people: those
who are honest about being selfish jerks, and hypocrites who disguise their
selfishness using "virtue signalling".

It's reminiscent of the psychopath world-view, actually.

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eeZah7Ux
Spot on. The English language had plenty of words to express concepts as
"bragging", "showing off", and so on.

"virtue signalling" has been quickly turn into a dog whistle within the alt-
right.

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richmarr
This article is disengenuous.

The lead example given is Ben & Jerry's anti-Trump ice cream, which is being
painted as "virtue signalling" because Unilever apparently sells skin-
bleaching creams in India.

Let's just dwell on that for a second... Josh Dehaas is accusing Ben & Jerry's
of cynical motivation, claiming that their "virtue" is performative, based on
the actions of another part of a multi-national organisation.

A multinational conglomerate is not a single entity with singular motivations.
The framing is flawed... almost certainly designed to appeal to people who
already believe "lefties" are "virtue signalling".

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s9w
The anti-trump ice cream is virtue signaling in itself - without the skin-
bleaching cream thing.

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richmarr
What's your reasoning? How to you claim to know the motives of the people that
planned that product?

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s9w
I'm baffled that virtue signaling and openly blasting politics is still so
widespread in companies and organizations. I have a huge "shit list" of those
who I see guilty enough to not want any business. Unfortunately especially in
the tech market there's a huge number of "guilty" parties.

Politics should not be a part of what companies and (to a lesser extend)
organizations do, out of self-interest alone.

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richmarr
> _self-interest alone_

At risk of blasting straight through Godwin's Law, this is the logic of 1930s
IBM... and it should be resoundingly rejected.

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s9w
I'm not sure if that self-interest thing was misinterpreted. What I meant is
that when people are alienated by corporate politics enough to not buy their
things - then it's no longer in the economic self interest of the company.

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richmarr
> _I 'm not sure if that self-interest thing was misinterpreted. What I meant
> is that when people are alienated by corporate politics enough to not buy
> their things - then it's no longer in the economic self interest of the
> company._

Are you saying that's happened here?

I live in Europe, but my understanding was that Trump fans were in a minority
(based on the fact that Clinton got more votes but rural states have more
electoral college votes per capita), which would make being anti-Trump more
likely to be a successful marketing strategy.

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s9w
> Are you saying that's happened here?

I'm not sure, probably not. But I think in similar cases in the gaming
industry this has definitely happened. BF5 just as a recent but non-ideal
example. So it's dangerous for them, and hence my baffling.

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apacheCamel
I am not sure BF5 relates to this at all. It seems like many people were under
the impression DICE was involving "gender politics" into a video game even
though women would have definitely been involved in the setting. The ones
outraged by it, in my opinion, just wanted to be outraged by it instead of
having a good reasoning behind it. The gaming industry also has a lot more
artistic freedom in taking jabs at the political here and now.

