I hear what you're saying but it's helpful to look at this with an additional layer of abstraction.
This is not just virtue-signaling in combat with edginess-signaling for their respective audience. It's more importantly a testament to prevailing sub-ideologies within portions of the population.
Edgy comments in tech forums like these are a signal of larger-scale class warfare (a loaded term, but bear with me). White collar techworkers think nothing of building skinner boxes and ad services all day as they are rewarded handsomely for it. In combination with all sorts of other factors, you end up with worsening social conditions across the board.
Some guy being nonchalant about dead Brazilian families and taking pleasure in signaling it is just a manifestation of overall societal nonchalance about rights and negative externalities among high-skilled workers and capital owners. These are real phenomenons that have consequences regardless of whether I myself might virtue signal about rejecting them.
This is not just virtue-signaling in combat with edginess-signaling for their respective audience. It's more importantly a testament to prevailing sub-ideologies within portions of the population.
Edgy comments in tech forums like these are a signal of larger-scale class warfare (a loaded term, but bear with me). White collar techworkers think nothing of building skinner boxes and ad services all day as they are rewarded handsomely for it. In combination with all sorts of other factors, you end up with worsening social conditions across the board.
Some guy being nonchalant about dead Brazilian families and taking pleasure in signaling it is just a manifestation of overall societal nonchalance about rights and negative externalities among high-skilled workers and capital owners. These are real phenomenons that have consequences regardless of whether I myself might virtue signal about rejecting them.