Gary Lineker - he really had to go and a warning t against virtue signalling

Well there are some gruesome stories from the holodomor.

In anthropomorphic terms bonobos are better behaved than chimps, and so are orangutans. I think we're closest to bonobos genetically IIRC - but it's a slippery slope understanding or having expectations of human behaviour in these ways, at least without a lot of caution. We're also related to lions and they eat their babies. And so on.

Still chimps though. Orangs seem pretty chilled if you leave them be..apparently they make good librarians.

@mids2019 think a lot fewer main stream celebs are wary now of virtue signalling for Palestinians and quite sensibly for their careers are avoiding this topic (except kneecap but heh). People look at how easily it is to slide into anti senitism even unwittingly and think I really don't want to engage in this topic and so sensibly it is not mentioned.
So basically you think the fear of being seen as “antisemitic” is gagging people from discussing the slaughter in Gaza? Do you feel that’s a good thing?

And then there's the Bonobos 😊

True. It can be somewhat terrifying to realise that we are just rising (hopefully) apes. Lowland gorillas seem a peaceful bunch but chimps are ruthless.

I've heard this too but - there are still some people who actually do do altruistic things, and even some who do altruistic things and don't boast about it. And there are some poeple who add to debates by making considered, thought-through points. And others who parrot things because they think it will make them look good. Whatever the evolutionary motive, these are different behaviours.

I'd also question the idea that every behaviour is good for the self or the group. That's clearly not true for humans and we have numerous mechanisms for stigmatising or ejecting some behaviours (not saying that is always well applied but it certainly happens). Identifying and calling out virtue-signalling is one of them maybe.

Indeed.

A biologist would argue virtue signaling is aimed at increasing social status within the group, in order to increase the likelihood of being able to reproduce.

Can't say I disagree.

I've heard it argued by biologists that there is no such thing as true altruism, from an animal behaviour perspective our actions are for the good of our group and our genes.

Welcoming or overwhelming? Religious affiliation has been weaponised.

This is the case under Jewish law. It is a facet of the exclusivity in Judaism with the strict restrictions imposed on marrying outwith the Jewish faith.

The reason other religions don’t have the same genetic line is because they are far more welcoming to other faiths.

Virtue signalling “A term which seeks to ridicule the ideas of altruism and generosity by suggesting that they are only ever undertaken in search of admiration.”

I don’t know if you’re just reposting this or also think it CurlewKate so this isn’t aimed at you. But anyone who thinks that must be a very black-and-white thinker. It’s not that ALL altruism and generosity is virtue signalling - and in fact most virtue-signalling is not altruism or generosity at all, it’s just boasting or mindless parroting of what someone thinks will get them brownie points. I think most people can tell the difference between someone who’s genuinely raising an important issue or contributing something to a cause, and someone who’s just showing off how wonderful and righteous they are.

it’s always existed of course but social media exacerbates it and gives people who are prone to it an irresistible platform. I was really struck by it when I first used Facebook and Twitter, how shamelessly people boasted about their good deeds or approved views and jumped on supposedly do-gooding bandwagons without any thought or questions. I didn’t actually hear the term “virtue-signalling” until later and knew exactly what it was referring to.

The above quote is actually the undermining one - making out that a phrase that really does have a meaning and reflects a well-known social behaviour, is a lie or should be shut down. I bet whoever said that is a virtue-signaller extraordinaire. Oh I see it was James o’Brien…

It’s really not hard to condemn the Israeli government and IDF’s illegal and cruel actions in Gaza without being antisemitic and throwing antisemitic images and tropes around. Lots of people are doing that including celebs, commentators, politicians etc. They specify that they are talking about the government and military actions, they may also add that Hamas are also at fault and that many Jewish people don’t support this behaviour either, for example, or at the very least they don’t post a picture of rats. I don’t think everyone should shut up about it, it’s OK to have an opinion and make comment. But when someone comments in a way that shows they’re just parroting or retweeting what they think is righteous and are too ignorant to distinguish criticism of a government from antisemitism, then yes I think they are virtue-signalling.

Jewish people are not Jewish because they believe in a God or are religious.
The vast majority of Jewish people are so via genetics. Thus "ethnicity".
When somebody.digs up the discovered grave of a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist in a thousand years time, there will be nothing to prove that that body belonged to somebody of those tribes outside of maybe a necklace with a cross and geopolitical historical knowledge of the.area the grave was found in , leading to an anthropological assertion/guess.
Nobody is genetically Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist.

Jewish people have as natural an instinct for self preservation as anybody or amy other group.
If being Jewish was continhent upon being a Believer, I am sure that they would have converted themselves out of being in thousands of years firing line.
Just like swathes of the world's different population did when Christianity and Islam came knocking on their doors.

With differing levels of success at maintaining connections to their previous indigenous cultural "higher power" beliefs.

It is my refrain that too many anti Israel people are not too bright and most definitely do not have a clue about the Judaism, what a Jewish person is, what Israel is and her provenance or any clue about Levantine history or the provenance of the Jewish Diaspora and the hows and whys of its manifestation.
Ever heard the term "Secular Jew"?
Knowledge of that term only requires a cursory investment in popular culture via fiction reading, tv ( drama or comedy, especially from the US).

Israel is to religiosity with Judaism being its foundational cultural compass as is the UK with Christianity being the foundation for most of her laws.

Both are secular with freedom of religion.

People do not drag the notion that Israel is a Western democracy out of their arse. It is; with secularity being one of her political tenets.

Israel is a secular ethno state.
Israel is surrounded by Islamic THEOCRACIES. Islam and Christianity are Abrahamic BELIEF systems. One cannot be "half Muslim", or "half Christian".

One can be half Jewish by having a Jewish father.

One cannot be forced to be a Jew. One is a Jew. One cannot "backslide" from being a Jew.

I thought all of this was common knowledge.

What can be the basis of one country on Earth pissing so many off that it is a designated home for Jewish people?

Does one go to Jamaica needing it to be emptied out of its 95 percent unambiguously non admixed and hardly admixed Black population to try and make the anti Black determination motto "out of many, we are one" make non anti Black sense?

Or for Nigeria to not be the world's most populous Black country and be more "South African"?

Or for Japan to let go of her culture, even in the face of a diminishing and ageing population, only to become a feral mess that the pretend there is no indigenous culture "multicultural" and ghettoised nation of non common aspiration the UK rapidly becoming?

Or the repressive messes that have lost or are closely losing their original and beautiful Arab/Persian etc Islamist states that are too many in the Middle East?
There is my expounding.
I'm
I'm sick of the disingenious nature of too many anti Israel/ anti Zionist ( most don't even know what this means) posters.

Celebrities ARE still speaking out, as they should!

https://news.sky.com/story/bono-calls-for-israel-to-be-released-from-benjamin-netanyahu-in-plea-for-peace-13372955

Virtue signalling “A term which seeks to ridicule the ideas of altruism and generosity by suggesting that they are only ever undertaken in search of admiration.”

Here’s an example
https://m.jpost.com/j-spot/article-824376

I love your use of the word 'topic'.

So people don't speak out because they don't want to be accused of antisemitism.
They don't want to engage in this 'topic' of Genocide.by and apartheid state in case it hurts their careers?

Yes and it’s been very clear from the start the Palestinians, are in their minds, engaged in a holy war.

It’s not as if the hysterical cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ captured non stop on video by participants of the atrocities of Oct 7th, and ‘innocent civilians’ in Gaza as the dead bodies of the victims were paraded through the streets, weren’t a tiny clue.

It must be difficult to exclude an overlay of antisemitism. Would you be able to speak to them about how you feel? If they are close friends.

Perhaps the other examples of complicity by Western governments are less well known?

There was withdrawal of peace keeping troops in Congo - but passive withdrawal is different from arming a country when the UN is concerned about potential genocide. There has been a UN/ EU arms embargo in the Congo.

UK armed Saudi Arabia and that was taken to the High Court. Perhaps it’s because we have greater expectations from some countries?

I do think we would be as critical if a democratic ally was acting in a similar way to Israel. There was uproar at the Iraq war too.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/11/slugs-iraq-war-london-protest-2003-legacy

Are you suggesting Israel is a secular state? Can you expand at all on the idea that ”ethnicity, not religion is the reason for Israel's existence in the modern era.”?

1899! That would be under the ottoman empire then? Colonialism eh?

Regarding Colonization see this article is from 1899.

https://www.nytimes.com/1899/06/20/archives/conference-of-zionists-elect-delegates-at-their-meeting-in.html
Thankfully Librarians around the world have done a great job of preserving newspapers from centuries ago.

The plan was always to colonize Palestine no amount of historical revisionism will change that. Also be mindful if it's so easy to revise history in order to justify settler colonialism, nefarious parties will also do the same thing with other more recent events.