[goodpoint]

> Steve Ballmer ... was ridiculed because the outburst of energy ...

It was much, much worse than that.

Putting aside the crass yelling and dancing; also putting aside any rumor of cocaine abuse; putting aside how cultish it looks...

Having a large crowd of adults yelling "dentists! dentists!" or be it lawyers, accountants, etc in a frenzy would be seen as very unprofessional.

> But many of us appreciated the sentiment

I hope not.

> It's called virtue signalling for a reason - people who do it announce their principles but never seem to live by them

And how do you know that? Some people can be hypocritical, yes.

Are all people with principles hypocritical?

[jimbob45]

>Having a large crowd of adults yelling "dentists! dentists!" or be it lawyers, accountants, etc in a frenzy would be seen as very unprofessional.

If the CEO of a large dental organization has the balls to go on stage and yell, "Hygienists! Hygienists! Hygienists!", it shows that he's willing to prostrate himself to show his commitment to the company he serves. People appreciate that. There are certainly enough CEOs ignoring the needs and desires of their employees sitting inside their ivory towers these days. We don't need more of them.

[Banana699]

>Are all people with principles hypocritical?

I think the issue here is not "People With Principles", but "People With Principles They Are Dying To Tell You About". This makes the standard for judging you much much higher : You not only think those principles are superior to a lot of other competing ones, You not only advocate (sometimes, a lot of times to be honest, obnoxiously) for those principles, You do all of those things in times and places where it doesn't make much sense, and right in the middle of other people who might very well disagree with you to heaven and back on those things but choose to stay silent and cooperate with you on unrelated matters nonetheless, cooperation which you break and impede by loudly and non-ceaseingly declaring views they find disagreeable. This makes the people around you, understandbly, model you as the truest possible expression of an X-ism follower: you're at least as sincere as any other X-ist, so any failings or deviation from you principles you have or do is something that the whole X-ism movement along with all its followers also have or do.

I'm biased against what typical US progressives advocate for, so I will choose one of my own principles to make an example of.

I'm a (still booting up) vegetarian, I try not to eat any meat for ethical reasons. I did manage to successfully banish meat from my food for about 2 years now, but I'm not strong-willed enough yet to stop eating marine life. (Technically this makes me not a vegetarian at all, but the weird-sounding word "Pescetarian", but "vegetarian" is more well known and more in alignment with my mental self-image and future plans.) Now, if I started advocating for vegetarianism very loudly and in every single chance and place I find, not only will this make some people very annoyed, but they will start asking : What sort of life do you lead by following this principle you're very passionate about ? If my life deviates from my principles (and it does), I expect people will be even more annoyed, outraged even, and become resistent to and critical of my advocacy. A similar thing happens with nearly every major religion or religion-like ideology, which vegetarianism and progressivism indeed are.

[tester756]

I think you're attacking weakest points of his comment, tbf.

[goodpoint]

So?