Wait until you're in a position to challenge them. Aka a big boss or own your own gig. I've tried challenging some of the crazier cargo cults over the years a

Wait until you're in a position to challenge them. Aka a big boss or own your own gig. I've tried challenging some of the crazier cargo cults over the years and it's always just made me look like an idiot. If you're going against the "experts" it generally makes you look bad unless people see you as someone with the same level of expertise. I usually try to temper the excitement by appearing conservative and cautious about trends I don't like. Saying things like "Maybe we could do that if X app wasn't full of legacy Y". Disagree with implementing the idea but without attacking the merit of the thing itself. This may seem like "beating around the bush" or whatever and it is. It's good old politics. Don't attack a popular idea directly, nip at the corners where the "good idea" intercepts reality. Try to let others make the decision that this good idea might not be so great in our situation themselves. Most of the time, this approach will fail. But the odds are better than debating a popular opinion at work or on HN where you will lose 99% of the time. Even when this approach fails, people are much more likely to agree with your critique if the idea does fail. "I thought this was great but maybe engineer X was on to something when he said Y could be an issue"