Cargo cults?

[.Shane.]

Source

Wow. I stumbled upon this in the wiki, quite by chance and started following many of the links.

I gotta say this is one of the more fascinating and bizarre things I've read lately.

If anyone can find any pictures of this kind of behavior, please link them.

John Frum? Amazing.

 

[GenMarshall]

The only Cargo cult that I will only approve of are freight transportation . I dont want silly nutjobs turning ordinary cargo containers and goods into the golden calf.

 

[Till]

At first i thought it was just an excuse to conduct piracy. But as i read on, it appears these people are/were sincere.
As you wrote, facinating.
It certainly highlights how we tend to label things magical, if we cannot understand them.

 

[.Shane.]

It certainly highlights how we tend to label things magical, if we cannot understand them.

The "John Frum" stuff was bizarre.

Also, the whole idea that they'd build an "airfield" that was not a mockery, but at the same time had absolutely no real or functional value in terms of a real airfield, in the hopes of the gods sending them "cargo" is just so .... man, I don't know what to call it.

I also thought the ways that cargo cult parallels have beeen found in western and/or modern societies was pretty interesting.

 

[Masquerouge]

This is great stuff. I wanna see the coconut airport!

 

[.Shane.]

This is great stuff. I wanna see the coconut airport!

This may be unfamiliar to you since you grew up in France, but it gives a whole new level of social relevancy to "Giligan's Island."

 

[The Last Conformist]

Personally, I think it's more rational to worship transport aircraft than the God of Abraham - the former at least undeniably exist.

 

[GenMarshall]

Personally, I think it's more rational to worship transport aircraft than the God of Abraham - the former at least undeniably exist.

Realy, Please dont drag the debate about the existance of God into this thread .

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Realy, Please dont drag the debate about the existance of God into this thread .

Please stop taking personal offense, especially when he's undeniably right.

The most interesting form of cargo cult that I know of is cargo cult programming, also known as cookbook programming, or voodoo programming (after voodoo economics). It's when you see a program, copy lots of it without a clue, and then just twiddle bits until it works for what you want it to do.


Cargo cult website design is perhaps the most annoying version of this, which fills websites with crap.

 

[.Shane.]

Please stop taking personal offense, especially when he's undeniably right.

Can we just leave all such religious discussions out of this thread? There's enough of them and they're pretty much redundant and, at this point, useless. I'd hate to ask to have my own thread closed, but I will.

The most interesting form of cargo cult that I know of is cargo cult programming, also known as cookbook programming, or voodoo programming (after voodoo economics). It's when you see a program, copy lots of it without a clue, and then just twiddle bits until it works for what you want it to do.

Yeah, I thought this modern and/or western parallel was pretty interesting. I liked the comment about cargo cult pseudoscience.

 

[GenMarshall]

Please stop taking personal offense, especially when he's undeniably right.

Realy, I believe that God does infact exist and I am not in the mood to debate against people who believe that God does not exist. I am not taking any personal offense, I am just tired of non-believers always bashing God and saying that he does not exist. Plus I dont believe that he is undeniably right.

Can we just leave all such religious discussions out of this thread? There's enough of them and they're pretty much redundant and, at this point, useless. I'd hate to ask to have my own thread closed, but I will.

For the first time. I actualy agree with you and felt that this is not a place to discuss or debate about the existance of God. Which is what my original intent of my above post was suppost to be.

The most interesting form of cargo cult that I know of is cargo cult programming, also known as cookbook programming, or voodoo programming (after voodoo economics). It's when you see a program, copy lots of it without a clue, and then just twiddle bits until it works for what you want it to do.

Cargo cult programming? Voodoo rograming, what? . I am not an expert hacker or programmer but I dont get what youre talking about .

 

[.Shane.]

Cargo cult programming? Voodoo rograming, what? . I am not an expert hacker or programmer but I dont get what youre talking about .

Then you didn't read the article I linked to.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Cargo cult programming? Voodoo rograming, what?

http://catb.org/jargon/html/C/cargo-cult-programming.html

http://catb.org/jargon/html/V/voodoo-programming.html

cargo cult programming: n.

A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood (compare shotgun debugging, voodoo programming).

The term ‘cargo cult’ is a reference to aboriginal religions that grew up in the South Pacific after World War II. The practices of these cults center on building elaborate mockups of airplanes and military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war. Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's characterization of certain practices as “cargo cult science” in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (W. W. Norton & Co, New York 1985, ISBN 0-393-01921-7).

 

[GenMarshall]

Then you didn't read the article I linked to.

I actualy did read the article but I still dont get it. Shesh, .Shane. why must you be so harsh towards me?

@Erik Mesoy - Thank you, at least you enlightened me about the topic insted of critcizing me .

 

[.Shane.]

I actualy did read the article but I still dont get it. Shesh, .Shane. why must you be so harsh towards me?

My apologies then.

/curtsies

Your reply read more like you hadn't read the article, not that you didn't understand that part of it.

Tx Eric.

 

[Till]

The most interesting form of cargo cult that I know of is cargo cult programming, also known as cookbook programming, or voodoo programming (after voodoo economics). It's when you see a program, copy lots of it without a clue, and then just twiddle bits until it works for what you want it to do.

i admit, i am guilty of doing this. Just copy an algorithm from a book and hope it works as specified. It is often the fastest way to solve a problem.

 

[Whomp]

Shane great stuff.
It kind of reminds me of the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy". Very funny movie btw.

 

[El_Machinae]

I still put logs on my head when I see a hyena, thanks to that movie.

 

[De Lorimier]

Thanks for the awesome link .Shane.!

A quick Google Image search gave me this.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Shane great stuff.
It kind of reminds me of the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy". Very funny movie btw.

Excellent movie. Who ever thought of a bushman journeying to the end of the earth (which looked super-cool BTW) to throw away an unlucky coke bottle as inspiration for the plot of a movie is a genius!