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You can't ban the ban's... they're the favorite way to virtue signal your higher morality from the top down.



I have to say, I am really tired of right wingers claiming every SF or other government or political policy they don't agree with is "virtue signalling". It is a lazy ad hominem which I don't find the least bit convicning.


Virtue signaling can be a lot of things. It can be insisting that a bike be painted shale blue to prove that you have a trendy sense of aesthetics.

On a side note, I’m surprised you are calling out the right wing for being anti virtue signaling. In my opinion, people who name themselves the Moral Majority are the biggest virtue signallers of them all.


It's one thing to wear a pin on your sleeve, but it's another thing to use the force of gvt to attempt to enforce morality, by banning things deemed "not good" like vapes, private cafeterias, plastic bags, straws, etc..

On a side note, trying to put a label into one or two buckets is very short sighted.


Disposable plastic is not an infinite resource, and its cost to the environment is not priced in the item. What is the problem with a good faith effort to reduce consumption?

Nicotine is addictive, last I checked a carcinogen in its own right (even if better for you than other cigarette additives), and there are reports that an entire generation is starting life addicted to it more than any previous generation. So if I think that's concerning, I am just trying to signal my virtue?

Can't be that I came to be concerned about either case for good reasons.

What I see a lot of on the internet lately is that people become unable to argue points like this and pull out the "virtue signalling" label when backed into a corner. Or like you I guess, you decide to mock "virtue signalling" without understanding how a person comes to these opinions in good faith.


Opinions. It's one thing to have them, it's another thing to force them on society.

If you want to reduce plastic consumption, just don't use it. But I bet you use a phone, computer, desk, eye glasses, wallet, clothing, etc., all made from the environmental destroying resource.

If you don't like addictive carcinogens, don't take them. Or is it your job to save humanity by banning it for everyone, or people of a certain age?

I have plenty of concerns, but I don't dare force them on the masses because of my own efforts of good faith. Change starts with you.

But here's a question... if plastic and nicotine and maybe other things like alcohol are so bad, why not just outright ban them (prohibited) instead of just limited to reduced consumption? It's b.s. legislation meant to signal virtue to the constituents. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.


Personally, these days when I see the term at all, it's usually a right wing complaint that nobody really cares about wealth disparity, the environment, equality among races creeds and gender, etc., but that any time anybody expresses support for any of these things it is "virtue signalling" and not an actual concern.


  It is a lazy ad hominem
As opposed to your "right wingers" appellation?


It is as far as I know an accurate description of who is doing this. I don't personally see a lot of centrists and leftists complaining about virtue signalling in non sequiturs to preemptively dismiss an idea or policy, or save them from thinking about why one might hold a position in good faith.


Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. My non-sequitur wasn't intended to be a formal argument, but a joke to get people to think about the nature of "bans" in general.


I have to say, I am really tired of left wingers banning anything they don't agree with.




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