Actually, lots of people acting together regularly accomplish things - almost everything wortwhile is accomplished that way, probably back to our non-homo ancestors.
As a simple matter, it keeps my city clean - we all put garbage in the bins (yes there's a law, but no way could it be enforced if the great majority of people didn't do it already). More dramatically and recently, the protests in India.
> society
Society is us - you, me, everyone. Nobody else is coming to help us.
I'm responsible for what I do, for the consequences of my actions. It's embarassing to say it's someone else's job (especially when the someone else is 'society'), and therefore I'm not going to do anything.
I think you've misunderstood my comment. I understand that people can do things together. My point was that the best thing to do together is to solve our problems at lowest total cost, and that choosing a high-cost solution can be individual "virtue signalling".
That term lacks all credibility - it's just a weak attack based on mind-reading - and is a signal itself.
Most people actually want do good - humans naturally are very social and want to do well for the group - and without prioritizing signaling. How sad that some are so politically driven by reactionary politics that their contribution is to snipe at others.
I disagree. There's coherent economic theory about how costly actions can be used to provide credible signals. It's been used in a wide variety of disciplines including biology (peacock's tails). No mind-reading is needed. I understand that sometimes it is used by right-wingers to attack left-wing positions. My comment wasn't driven by reactionary politics, and my point was to encourage people to think about what actually does well for the group - which, at the risk of repeating myself, is about minimizing the cost for a given level of benefit.
There’s lots of evidence for costly signalling across multiple domains! For this specific case, I can’t be certain about any individual’s motivation, of course - I simply raised the possibility and pointed out why it would be a bad idea to think that way.
As a simple matter, it keeps my city clean - we all put garbage in the bins (yes there's a law, but no way could it be enforced if the great majority of people didn't do it already). More dramatically and recently, the protests in India.
> society
Society is us - you, me, everyone. Nobody else is coming to help us.
I'm responsible for what I do, for the consequences of my actions. It's embarassing to say it's someone else's job (especially when the someone else is 'society'), and therefore I'm not going to do anything.