
The Merchandising of Virtue - peter_retief
https://medium.com/incerto/the-merchandising-of-virtue-b548762658f0
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syntheticnature
The excerpt starts off by conflating virtue with opinions and ideas as a
whole, then embracing the tu quoque fallacy wholeheartedly and running with
it. The conclusions shown merely happen to be a bit more agreeable to HN
readers. A simple concept swap makes an early comment risible, "It is immoral
to be in opposition of Soviet Communism and not live in a hut isolated from
it."

Also, the title is definitely editorial by the poster versus the original "The
Merchandising of Virtue."

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cholantesh
It's a little bit bizarre that Taleb continues to be lionized by anyone, let
alone the HN crowd, given how terrible a public intellectual he is.

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dbs
Define "terrible public intellectual".

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cholantesh
One who is more liable to throw a tantrum and call you a shill than engage in
meaningful debate with his critics.

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nstj
Tavakoli[0] has been surprisingly quiet on Taleb recently.

[0]: Nassim "Black Swan" Taleb Busted For Exaggerating Returns,
[http://www.businessinsider.com/wait-before-you-invest-in-
nas...](http://www.businessinsider.com/wait-before-you-invest-in-nassim-
talebs-new-fund-2009-6?IR=T&r=US&IR=T)

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wuch
All else being equal, not advertising your virtue would seem like right thing
to do. Though, from more utilitarian perspective, if you actually care about
about cause and want to make a difference, this could be wrong decision to
make.

In effective altruism circle it is quite common to argue to be public about
your charitable activities, lets it will inspire others to do the same, and
there seems to be sufficient evidence to say that it indeed works.

BTW, I hope that someday economist will stop spreading barter myth. Yes, it is
nice thought experiment conjured by Adam Smith, but if you actually look what
anthropology and ethnography has to say about it, you will see it is
completely baseless claim [0].

[0] Barter and Economic Disintegration, Caroline Humprhey - "No example of a
barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the
emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there
never has been such a thing."

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teilo
I generally assume that the more one engages in virtue signaling the more they
are trying to compensate for their self-perceived hypocrisy.

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brudgers
Title is currently editorialized. Article tile is, The Merchandising of
Virtue.

