I interpret the engagement with conservative ideas Scott’s describing a little more straightforwardly. Lots of people are inundated with Mrs. Grundy leftist takes on social media. They’re smart enough to try and figure out what they really think. So they say things like “Oh, I heard about that guy in South Carolina. Instead of knee-jerk condemnation, let’s try to form some general principles out of it and see what it teaches us about civil society.”
This isn’t countersignaling. It’s just signaling. This isn’t making fun of anybody, and it’s calling for straightforward civil discourse in terms nobody could possibly mistake for anything else.
I notice that a key characteristic of signaling vs countersignaling is that for regular signaling you are paying with resources while for counter signaling you are paying with risk. That is—the credibility of regular signals is derived from false signals being more costly than true signals, so it’s harder to justify sending them. The credibility for countersignals comes from the risk of the signal backfiring, which should be have a greater probability when the signal is false, deterring false signalers.
Calling for a civil discourse is not a signal that requires much cost to send. So if it was a regular signal, it was at most a virtue signal. But even thought it comes “in terms nobody could possibly mistake for anything else”, it can still backfire. If you are perceived as a person who often gets emotional in discussions and engage in personal attacks and general demagogy, calling for a civil discourse can paint you as a hypocrite who only wants civil discourse when it fits their agenda. If you consistently discuss civilly, the risk for that happening is much lower.
So, this may not be a strict by-definition countersignal—after all, the naive interpretation of the signal is exactly what you are trying to signal—but I still find it’s mechanics to be much closer to countersignals than to traditional signals.
I notice that a key characteristic of signaling vs countersignaling is that for regular signaling you are paying with resources while for counter signaling you are paying with risk. That is—the credibility of regular signals is derived from false signals being more costly than true signals, so it’s harder to justify sending them. The credibility for countersignals comes from the risk of the signal backfiring, which should be have a greater probability when the signal is false, deterring false signalers.
Calling for a civil discourse is not a signal that requires much cost to send. So if it was a regular signal, it was at most a virtue signal. But even thought it comes “in terms nobody could possibly mistake for anything else”, it can still backfire. If you are perceived as a person who often gets emotional in discussions and engage in personal attacks and general demagogy, calling for a civil discourse can paint you as a hypocrite who only wants civil discourse when it fits their agenda. If you consistently discuss civilly, the risk for that happening is much lower.
So, this may not be a strict by-definition countersignal—after all, the naive interpretation of the signal is exactly what you are trying to signal—but I still find it’s mechanics to be much closer to countersignals than to traditional signals.