I don’t believe in that diagnosis of Vice Signaling.
To me, Vice Signaling is at its core a Declaration of Loyalty. One acknowledge that One Cannot Serve Two Masters, and abjure any loyalty to any non-True Master. It’s still in the end Virtue Signaling, just phrased as a negative (I don't care about good-thing-X (because I primarily care about even-better-thing-Y)).
This is a very old move, and not just in immature adolescents. “Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus” : this is not bragging "I don't care about the world", this is signaling "My One True Master is Justice".
It is also about defusing trick questions and loyalty test. Let’s not beat around the bush : if Vice Signalling has entered the mainstream discourse, it’s because of Current US Administration. Where various officials won’t blush saying things in the vicinity of "those immigrants died ? I’m going to dance on their tombs".
This is still Virtue Signaling : "My One True Master is the American People. Don’t dare you try loyalty-test me with other concerns" (because, let’s be honest, right-wing politicians have been trained by their environment as seeing all concerns as a loyalty-test and concern-tricking : "You’re opposed to a wealth tax ? That means you’re in favor of poor African children dying, right ?" There’s one point when this game is sufficiently repeated that the correct move is to answer "Yes and Yes", and it has absolutely nothing to do with the politician True Feelings about poor African children. This btw generalize to "how your social environment deal with subtle tradeoffs and split loyalties ?")
We do not get the positive variants of "I'm going to dance on their tombs", "Defund the police", "Vaccines are bad", or "All men are trash".
In a Terminally Cynical culture, we witness much more signals of vice than of virtue. Movements become reactionary. People become accelerationarist and revolutionary.
"humans will bio/acc in order to keep up / maximally leverage AI capabilities
we live in the era of bio and coginitive augmentation"
"the secret is to have faith in fundamental principles of civilizational progress and to devote one self to this pursuit of civilizational advancement in a self-sacrificial way"
I actually have to scroll to find Vice Signaling. Closest I found is "Virtue signalling AI Safetyists leaving Anthropic makes me bullish on Anthropic".
(my intuition is that virtue signaling is for in-group, vice signaling for out-group, so since anyone is the outgroup of a thousand sub-cultures except his own, vice signaling is way more salient)
(in-group and out-group in the sense of insider/outsider, not scott alexander sense)
Nevertheless, in my view, you are mixing up rhetoric and action
> I’m confused. Aren’t the accerelerationists and revolutionaries those positive variants ?
If you think in terms of rhetoric, both have extremely compelling visions.
If you think in terms of policy prescriptions, they are reactionary.
Techno-optimism and e/acc are central examples of this.
They gesture at "Civilisation" but do not have actual proposals for how to live together. On the contrary, they fight most of the institutions that have made civilisation possible in the first place, instead of repairing them.
Their policy prescription is to fight "decels", deregulate everything, and gain more power through techno-capitalism.
e/acc is a central example of this parody, with its "maximise entropy" motto. I think BeffJ dropped it in favour of "Kardashev scale", but not as a result of a change in policy, just because people kept making fun of it for good reason.
Oh, totally, in my mind "Virtue Signaling" and "Vice Signaling" are entirely simulacra level 3 things, pure rhetoric.
You’re thinking of a level-1, internal, more substantial (in the sense of action-driving) "Vice Signaling" ?
(I first wrote :
I’m not entirely sure there’s such a thing. Like you point out, there is a distinct lack of actual, actionable, serious prescriptions. It’s vibes all the way down. Which would rather match level 4, "your theater play become your object-level".
Level-1 vice signaling would be actively taking bad actions and being proud of it.)
And then Zvi's "How is ‘a16z-backed’ always followed by ‘torment nexus’? At this point I’m not even mad, I’m just impressed" immediately popped out of my mind. That may be a real example of level 1 vice signaling.
I don’t believe in that diagnosis of Vice Signaling.
To me, Vice Signaling is at its core a Declaration of Loyalty. One acknowledge that One Cannot Serve Two Masters, and abjure any loyalty to any non-True Master. It’s still in the end Virtue Signaling, just phrased as a negative (I don't care about good-thing-X (because I primarily care about even-better-thing-Y)).
This is a very old move, and not just in immature adolescents. “Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus” : this is not bragging "I don't care about the world", this is signaling "My One True Master is Justice".
It is also about defusing trick questions and loyalty test. Let’s not beat around the bush : if Vice Signalling has entered the mainstream discourse, it’s because of Current US Administration. Where various officials won’t blush saying things in the vicinity of "those immigrants died ? I’m going to dance on their tombs".
This is still Virtue Signaling : "My One True Master is the American People. Don’t dare you try loyalty-test me with other concerns" (because, let’s be honest, right-wing politicians have been trained by their environment as seeing all concerns as a loyalty-test and concern-tricking : "You’re opposed to a wealth tax ? That means you’re in favor of poor African children dying, right ?" There’s one point when this game is sufficiently repeated that the correct move is to answer "Yes and Yes", and it has absolutely nothing to do with the politician True Feelings about poor African children. This btw generalize to "how your social environment deal with subtle tradeoffs and split loyalties ?")
I believe you are wrong.
We do not get the positive variants of "I'm going to dance on their tombs", "Defund the police", "Vaccines are bad", or "All men are trash".
In a Terminally Cynical culture, we witness much more signals of vice than of virtue. Movements become reactionary. People become accelerationarist and revolutionary.
I’m confused. Aren’t the accerelerationists and revolutionaries those positive variants ?
And, yes we see the positive variants ?
"I'm going to dance on their tombs" => the whole MAGA thing (I mean: the literal slogan) is kinda positive AND salient ?
"Defund the police" => essentially the whole "Kumbaya" vibes
"All men are trash" => "War is a men thing ; in a world where women are in charge, there is world peace"
Or let’s go in the prototypical e/acc : https://x.com/beffjezos
"humans will bio/acc in order to keep up / maximally leverage AI capabilities
we live in the era of bio and coginitive augmentation"
"the secret is to have faith in fundamental principles of civilizational progress and to devote one self to this pursuit of civilizational advancement in a self-sacrificial way"
I actually have to scroll to find Vice Signaling. Closest I found is "Virtue signalling AI Safetyists leaving Anthropic makes me bullish on Anthropic".
(my intuition is that virtue signaling is for in-group, vice signaling for out-group, so since anyone is the outgroup of a thousand sub-cultures except his own, vice signaling is way more salient)
(in-group and out-group in the sense of insider/outsider, not scott alexander sense)
I like your explanation
Nevertheless, in my view, you are mixing up rhetoric and action
> I’m confused. Aren’t the accerelerationists and revolutionaries those positive variants ?
If you think in terms of rhetoric, both have extremely compelling visions.
If you think in terms of policy prescriptions, they are reactionary.
Techno-optimism and e/acc are central examples of this.
They gesture at "Civilisation" but do not have actual proposals for how to live together. On the contrary, they fight most of the institutions that have made civilisation possible in the first place, instead of repairing them.
Their policy prescription is to fight "decels", deregulate everything, and gain more power through techno-capitalism.
e/acc is a central example of this parody, with its "maximise entropy" motto. I think BeffJ dropped it in favour of "Kardashev scale", but not as a result of a change in policy, just because people kept making fun of it for good reason.
Oh, totally, in my mind "Virtue Signaling" and "Vice Signaling" are entirely simulacra level 3 things, pure rhetoric.
You’re thinking of a level-1, internal, more substantial (in the sense of action-driving) "Vice Signaling" ?
(I first wrote :
I’m not entirely sure there’s such a thing. Like you point out, there is a distinct lack of actual, actionable, serious prescriptions. It’s vibes all the way down. Which would rather match level 4, "your theater play become your object-level".
Level-1 vice signaling would be actively taking bad actions and being proud of it.)
And then Zvi's "How is ‘a16z-backed’ always followed by ‘torment nexus’? At this point I’m not even mad, I’m just impressed" immediately popped out of my mind. That may be a real example of level 1 vice signaling.
Yup, I was in fact referring to Level 1.
> We do not get the positive variants of "I'm going to dance on their tombs", "Defund the police", "Vaccines are bad", or "All men are trash".
I meant, the actions behind the slogans, more than the slogans themselves.
People taking these actions _are_ proud of them.
But looking back on it, it was indeed not clear.
Thanks for making me notice this