When the instincts to virtue signal are combined with curiosity about science, open-mindedness about values and viewpoints, rationality about priorities and policies, and strategic savvy about ways and means, then wonderful things can happen. These more enlightened forms of virtue signaling have sparked the Protestant Reformation, American Revolution, abolitionist movement, anti-vivisection movement, women’s suffrage movement, free speech movement, and Effective Altruism movement. But when the instincts to virtue signal are not combined with curiosity, open-mindedness, rationality, and strategic savvy, then you get Robespierre’s Reign of Terror, Stalin’s Holodomor, Hitler’s Holocaust, mao’s Cultural Revolution, and Twitter.

Geoffrey Miller, Virtue Signaling: Essays on Darwinian Politics & Free Speech, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2019