I tried to have a discussion with another Medium blogger who opposed the idea of collaboration for common goals, who I will name (Jaden Violet/indigokali) because she’s a good example of the egoistic virtue signalling you referred to.
https://medium.com/@indigokali/we-dont-have-time-for-this-shit-a7b8d6063780
All I asked her was if she thought it would be effective to collaborate in such instances, and if she could see the difference between limited collaboration and alliance, and she couldn’t even get her head around the notion to consider it. All she could process was “People I don’t like are bad, and bad people are bad, so no”.
The ability to categorise and distinguish is at the very core of intelligence, and therefore essential for analysis. A deficiency in the former will surface in the latter. If you notice such failures and point them out, it’s quite common to be met with obliviousness, hostility, and deceit.
This absurd blowback is a heavily taxing ordeal Caitlin. I hope it doesn’t weigh too heavily on you for too long.