The other is that we might forget what the values mean in practice. There might be good reasons why people, including ourselves, aren’t living the values. It’s ok to be aspirational. But when signaling is routine, without checking whether we’re doing it, we risk overlooking nuances and tradeoffs.

I think there are two other downsides that are worth taking into account. One is when the signaling is used not only for in-group communication but also out-group exclusion. Group exclusion of people whose actions are aligned, but their speech isn’t, is not a sin but it seems like a loss.