The Merchandising of Virtue

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."

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...

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."

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

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