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Nah, we better abandon this kind of retroactive policing of language instead from people with nothing better to do. Nobody who uses the term "cargo cult" in a

• goy 2y ago
  I understand that all the controversies of the past years put you on the defensive (e.g. the whole thing with Github repo default branches being renamed from "master" to "main", etc), but I think that this is the kind of issue we should try to find a balance on, instead of just throwing out the baby with the bath water. My native language is Ewe. The words we usually use for caucasian people is "yo vo".It's an evolution of an archaic pronunciation used today by only a few, "ye vu", and it was brought to my attention recently that it means "cunning dog".Ye=cunning, Vu=dog. Explanation: we kinda didn't start on a good footing with the Germans back in the day ... So today most people will call every white person "cunning dog" without even knowing or meaning harm because the dialect has evolved. On one hand, for most people, it's just a random word with no insulting connotation; you try to make them switch to some another term, you're crazy dumb woke etc. On the other hand, I know I would take offense in being called that even if I'm told the word's lost the original meaning a long time ago. Personally I don't know where the middle ground should be. But some "retroactive policing of language" is definitely needed. It may seem mundane to you, but sometimes these kind of things can be unsavory to other people. With globalization, it's not you and your pals anymore ...
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  • imgabe 2y ago
    So, I'm white and I live in Hong Kong. Gwei Lo (or some variation) is a slur for white people in China that I think basically means "foreign devil" or something to that effect. There's a popular brand of craft beer sold here that is literally named "gwei lo" and you know what? I don't care. Nobody cares. It really doesn't matter. I don't feel the need to campaign for the beer company to change their name. Even your username is a ~Yiddish~ (edit: Hebrew, thank you, ars) word Jewish people use for non-Jewish people (sometimes derogatory, maybe). There's no end to this rabbit hole. Judge people by their intentions behind what they say, not some etymological trivia.
    • goy 2y ago
      First, I'm aware of the origin of the term; but "guy" was taken so I made do. Second, you don't care, but ... I'm afraid to break the news to you but there are billions of other people on the planet today, including me. I care. Personally, I don't like the term from my language not only because of the possible reception but also it doesn't feel right to use it.
      • BigJono 2y ago
        Why does it not feel right if it's long lost it's negative connotation? It's completely arbitrary at this point.
        • jszymborski 2y ago
          I can imagine that they are reminded of its original meaning, sapping any sort of desire to use the term. At least, that's how I feel about many of these "problematic" words.
      • throwawaymaths 2y ago
        How do you feel about the fact that "ciao!" means "slave!" (almost no one who uses the word "ciao" realizes the connection)
        • Y_Y 2y ago
  • Nursie 2y ago
    Have you encountered anyone on the receiving end who is actually a) aware of this and b) bothered by it? Because that would seem an important thing to ascertain.
    • goy 2y ago
      Never did. As I said, I only recently became aware of the fact myself. I just say that it won't give me a good first impression of the people calling me that if I'm aware of the meaning. And by the way, your first contact with the term could come with our local brew of (supremac|national|fasc|rac)ists, who are quite fond of it and afterwards you will get off thinking everyone using the term has a beef with you (again I'm assuming, never discussed it with anyone concerned, you could say I'm imagining it).
      • Nursie 2y ago
        I mean, it sounds like their intent isn't great! I don't want to condemn your thoughts/feelings on this as I'm clearly not familiar with the specific situation, but I think what people are getting at is that imagining that other people may be offended by words and then policing based on that seems like moral posturing and trying to change people's habits for very little reason. If you take into account that (for the most part) the users of those words/idioms don't actually mean the 'bad' meaning, it all seems ... pointless. An action to make an in-group feel superior to an out-group, but that doesn't actually make any difference. It sometimes reminds me of the (very middle class) campaign that took place in the UK in the last decade to stop people feeding bread to ducks, swans and other waterfowl. Well meaning, virtuous people took to putting up home-made signs about it at popular spots, and to intervening and even shaming those that continued the centuries old tradition. Pictures of swans with wing conditions were often used to try to shock. While there is truth to the idea that there are better things you can feed ducks (oats, leafy greens), eventually the royal master of swans and a well-respected professor of ornithology got together and put out a statement begging people not to stop. Bread does no detectable harm to the birds, there is no known link to the medical conditions and it forms an important source of calories for many populations over winter. But the signs and the behaviour don't really stop, because it gives some people a way to look down on others, to signal that they know and those other idiots are just awful.
  • ahf8Aithaex7Nai 2y ago
    I'm German and I wish you wouldn't take offense at this “yo yo” word on our behalf. It's not the N-word. There is no wound or trauma here. It's just a word with a history. In the East, we are called Niemcy, Německo, Nimska, etc.: all words that derive from an old attribution that means something like “mute” or “unable to speak”. Is that relevant today? No, it is not! I understand that young people need a cause to stand up and fight for, but language policing is really garbage. Be a socialist instead. Or do something against poverty, homelessness, wars, femicide, racism, ... Take your pick. But please understand that language policing does not change anyone's material living conditions, but is a purely mastorbatory matter. It is the most low-threshold, apolitical and inconsequential way of making yourself feel progressive and standing up for something.
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    • Y_Y 2y ago
      To add to the irony you might call the languages with terms related to the Polish "Niemcy" by another etymologically rich word like German "Slawisch" or in English "Slavic".
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  • AngryData 2y ago
    I can't really agree with that, if basically nobody who is called a word doesn't care about it, it is a waste of effort. Maybe if the world lacked the millions of other far more pressing problems, but it seems like a complete waste of attention span to care about. Even if we change all these "offensive" terms that were once derogatory but now in regular neutral usage with minimal efforts and no resistance, what was actually accomplished other than some trivia question being eliminated? In 50 years or so, people will just say the next round of terms is insensitive, especially as language continues to change and evolve, and repeat on forever.
  • acheron 2y ago
    This is just the etymological fallacy. Etymology is interesting in learning where words came from and what their sources originally meant, but it doesn't define what words currently mean. You can "decimate" something without actually killing 1/10th of the people involved, and you can call some people "yo vo" without meaning they are cunning dogs.
  • Y_Y 2y ago
    Fwiw, I'm white and I don't like being called Caucasian. As far as I can tell none of my ancestors did so much as visit the Caucasus, and the fine people of Georgia and nearby areas hardly benefit from being associated with me. If you had to group into Caucasoid, Negroid or Mongoloid your likely choose the first one, but I'd say it's better not to work on the basis of 18th century "racial theory". However, I don't usually make a fuss about the term, because I know a great many people use the term to mean "white" and aren't thinking about the relative merits of the three races of man. It's just a word to many people and it serves well enough in that context.
• userbinator 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • kelseyfrog 2y ago
    Curious, which virtue do you think the author is signaling?
    • x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
      The progressive "virtue" of aggressive anti colonialization.
      • kelseyfrog 2y ago
        Sorry, I havent heard of that one. Can you explain how it's virtuous?
        • x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
          It's not, hence the scare quotes.
          • kelseyfrog 2y ago
            I'm not quite connecting the dots. If it's not a virtue then I'm not sure how it would qualify as virtue signaling. What am I missing?
            • echoangle 2y ago
              Virtue signaling doesn’t have to be done with something that’s actually a virtue, you just have to think that what you’re signaling is perceived as a virtue by your target demographic.
              • defrost 2y ago
                Moreover an article isn't neccesarily virtue signalling merely because an internet forum user stridently declares it to be.
• 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  [flagged]
• globnomulous 2y ago
  > There are 1000000 causes you could devote your time and make an active difference to people actually suffering this very moment, rather than [etc]. I mean, yes, there is probably a more pressing cause, a worthier cause, a more effective way to bring about change if the guy cares about the issue of colonialism or something. So what? There's always a worthier or more pressing cause or arguably a better way to pursue it than [x]. If you care about something, that's your cause. You don't need to justify it by establishing that your commitment to it accurately reflects its place in the triaged hierarchy of capital-i issues. It's also possible to care about more than one thing at a time. So if this is the guy's cause, that's fine. He doesn't need to devote himself to something worthier or demonstrate that the energy he expends on it is well spent. That being said, his criticism of the metaphor and his prescription both strike me as not just nonsense but backwards. Providing historical context shows, if anything, that "cargo cult" as a metaphor is historically accurate, especially in the sense in which engineers use it: cargo cult engineering practices are those that their believers are convinced will help usher in some desired future, but the basis of those practices is sheer superstition. And the fact that there is a story, in the context of actual, historical cargo cults, to be told about exploitation or subjugation is, again, an irrelevant, empty truism. Almost every grass-roots religious movement can be interpreted this way. And in areas that were under colonial or authoritarian rule, one would be hard pressed to find social and religious movements that don't in one way or another respond to those conditions. So the author's historical analysis is sophomoric, like the guy has just discovered oppression and really wants to raise the alarm about it. The resulting prescription is empty, lame, and tedious. Sanctifying the oppressed this way is also weirdly tone deaf and condescending. Nobody's asking us to protect the subaltern religious movements of southeast Asia, nobody's belittling them, and nobody cares, except the author, apparently, who for some strange reason is filing complaints on their behalf.
  • motorest 2y ago
    > If you care about something, that's your cause. You don't need to justify it by establishing that your commitment to it accurately reflects its place in the triaged hierarchy of capital-i issues. In your opinion, exactly what's the cause in this case?
• cratermoon 2y ago
  You'd think that smart programmers would appreciate being corrected in their understanding of facts of history and society, and not cling to outmoded ritualistic expressions of belief based on misunderstandings and incomplete information.
  • userbinator 2y ago
    We don't care; just like the fact that a floppy disk now means "save".
  • motorest 2y ago
    > You'd think that smart programmers would appreciate being corrected in their understanding of facts of history and society, (...) The problem is that there is nothing being corrected at all. There's only a poorly framed and distorted interpretation of the coloquial use of an expression, which is then exaggerated to serve as a basis for virtue signaling. The blogger goes to the extent of trying to dismiss any argument that ever refers to the concept as "simply a lazy, meaningless attack". As if anyone who refers to a specific concept is automatically wrong by means of commiting a foul in a virtue signaling game.
    • Apocryphon 2y ago
      The author precedes that claim that the use of the concept has become "a lazy, meaningless attack" with the following: > Note that the metaphor in cargo-cult programming is the opposite of the metaphor in cargo-cult science: Feyman's cargo-cult science has no chance of working, while cargo-cult programming works but isn't understood. Moreover, both metaphors differ from the cargo-cult metaphor in other contexts, referring to the expectation of receiving valuables without working. So there's some justification that the meaning has escaped the metaphor and has become meaningless. Also, it's quite ironic that arguably the term "virtue signaling" has itself become a lazy, meaningless attack- a cargo cult, in other words. Claims of virtue signaling - both as a rhetorical activity, and as an insult devised to shut down discourse- are both cargo cults.
      • 2y ago
• boodleboodle 2y ago
  I fall on the opposite spectrum: I don't think the author's call for consideracy deserves shaming with a term like "language policing". Instead in my mind, I label comments like this that reject calls for compassion as "defensive insensitivity". I think terms can still be demeaning even without demeaning intentions. Like "orientals".
• sandesh247 2y ago
  Less than five years ago, this term was used to describe what my team was doing. The criticism was correct, and my team did change its ways. At the time, I was unaware of this term, and the explanation given to me was the "misunderstood" one, as explained in the article. Since that incident, I, too, have pointed out patterns of "cargo culting" as/when I identified them. Not too many, but definitely more than a couple. More than once, I've repeated the same explanation. I've even used the "misunderstood" explanation as a fun anecdote to share at gatherings (both work, and social). While I don't think less of the original person for referring to my team as a cargo cult (they were sincere in their criticism), the article will definitely stop me from using the misunderstood version of events as the "true" origin of the term. It will change the way I speak about it, even if I refer to this term in the future. For that, I am grateful.
  • esperent 2y ago
    > the article will definitely stop me from using the misunderstood version of events as the "true" origin of the term That's absolutely fair and if that had been there point of the article, I'd be 100% behind it. I love learning new things about words and phrases. Etymology is my jam. But no. That wasn't the point of the article. It's saying "you are wrong, you should feel bad, you're not allowed to use the thing you were wrong about anymore". I generally fall quite far on the left, politically. But when people talk about "woke nonsense", this is the kind of thing where I find myself agreeing with them, much as I did a couple of years ago when we were all socially pressured into renaming our "master" branches to "main" branches.
    • kelnos 2y ago
      So what you're saying is that you agree with the underlying message, but because it was presented in a way that offends your sensibilities, you're going to ignore it and continue to use a phrase derived from something that's incorrect and never existed? And really, you're bothered by the idea that 'main' is a more neutral name for the default branch of a git repository, and want to cling to 'master', when that term has traditionally been used to describe someone who enslaves other humans? Really? You're that attached to something like a default branch name in a VCS? Or you aren't, but because it sounded like people were trying to make you feel bad about yourself for using 'master', you're just going to be obstinate and own those libs? All that seems kinda spiteful and petty. You do you, I guess.
• kelnos 2y ago
  > There are 1000000 causes you could devote your time and make an active difference to people actually suffering this very moment, rather than language policing tech terms. I'm sure there are 1000000 other things you could devote your time to than policing someone's blog-post language on HN.
• nobodywillobsrv 2y ago
  Here here. Not only that but this retrospectivism fails to offer an alternative to modern developments. When small disconnected groups connect through new roads or technology one will always have a huge change in culture. The railways and road in England for example are not politicized as "self colonialization" because it's ridiculous but that is exactly what is was.
  • CRConrad 2y ago
    > Here here. Where, where? "Hear, hear!" HTH.
• OwlsParlay 2y ago
  The biggest problem comes when this type of language policing is seen as the primary way of changing behaviours. It's correct to be anti-racist / anti-sexist / etc. but that doesn't come from just changing your language while still operating the same as before. It reminds me of the whole fuss over using "homeless" vs "unhoused" - while actual policies to help homeless people get ignored or defunded.
  • psychoslave 2y ago
    Of course the wording is not all. But it does induce a perspective on the situation, be it conscious or not. And it then more or less subtly influence how we engage in extra-linguistic interaction. It plays a huge role with feedback loops through laws that are the public statement of the dominant social order. And it has also a large impact on informal actions done at the tacitly ordinary daily social exceptions. Consider how factory, mill, works and plant are all usable to refer to a place where some human endeavor is conducted. The term plant has several etymological hypothesis, including one linking it to slavery and colonization through plantations.[1] https://shuncy.com/article/why-are-factories-called-plants-carver https://shuncy.com/article/why-are-factories-called-plants-c... I’m not a English native and I’m unaware of the "homeless" vs "unhoused" tensions. But to my mind they still seems same-minded compared to "indigent", "pauper", "sedentarized", "nomad" or "settler".
  • unitol 2y ago
    Isn't the distinction between "homeless" and "unhoused" that the former includes people who may have a house to stay in, at least temporarily, but the latter does not? Like the difference between couchsurfing in a friend's house (homeless but not unhoused) and sleeping in a car or on the street (both homeless and unhoused).
    • dack 2y ago
      the distinction is rarely necessary in most discussions though, so if that's the intention, it's not all that helpful
  • poulpy123 2y ago
• animal531 2y ago
  If we're retiring old terms willy nilly then at least we should be introducing better new ones, unlike for example skibidi toilet.
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• b800h 2y ago
  The stupid thing about this one is that the article specifically raises examples of the cargo-cultism that Feynman used for his talk. "They erected mock radio antennas". All the responses pushing back against this idiocy in this thread give me hope for the future, that we're regaining our collective sanity.
• tomxor 2y ago
  Yes, semantic arguments are weak, but no, the author is not complaining about the term being offensive. Perhaps this is only a subtle difference because they are still suggesting people change their language. Clarified at the end of the post, i think a valid complaint is that the fictitious pop culture version (from which the technical use was derived) has unfortunately obscured the anthropologically correct version which is far darker and important. > Finally, the cargo cult metaphor turns decades of harmful colonialism into a humorous anecdote. Feynman's description of cargo cults strips out the moral complexity: US soldiers show up with their cargo and planes, the indigenous residents amusingly misunderstand the situation, and everyone carries on. However, cargo cults really were a response to decades of colonial mistreatment, exploitation, and cultural destruction. Moreover, cargo cults were often harmful: expecting a bounty of cargo, villagers would throw away their money, kill their pigs, and stop tending their crops, resulting in famine. The pop-culture cargo cult erases the decades of colonial oppression, along with the cultural upheaval and deaths from World War II. Melanesians deserve to be more than the punch line in a cargo cult story. I don't think it's possible to override the pop culture version, language does its own thing, but the author at least managed to inject a bit of important history back into it for many of us here, and that will probably make an interesting talking point as we are reminded of it each time we use it technically.
• InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  But the past of the west does not result in any real pushback. Criticize a real dictatorship today or some death cult and they send people after you, who punch you. The people who caused this are long dead and their descendants are in agreement on what they did being an atrocity. Save activism, that's where its at. Radical. Risk free. State sponsored. Critizize China, russia or isis and you might end up like those who actually fought in the resistance or some menshiwiki. Not recommended how that ended.
• BeFlatXIII 2y ago
  > Care about politics and colonialism and injustice and what have you? My rule of thumb is that anyone who talks about decolonization is a grifter. The specific harms of colonialism are real; decolonial thinking is for those without anything worthwhile to say.
• PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  > Nobody who uses the term "cargo cult" in a technical settings does it out of spite or even refers to specific nations or peoples. Intent doesn't really matter here; it's just poor communication if you are aware of where the term comes from. Why not just use "dogmatic" or something?
  • lolinder 2y ago
    Dogmatic doesn't mean the same thing. The most general term might be something like "magical thinking"—we use cargo cult not to refer to people holding a belief unquestioningly, but to refer to people going through the motions of a ritual without having a strong rational basis for believing it will have the desired effect, and even more specifically it implies that the ritual was borrowed from someone who actually did understand the science behind it and knew how to apply it correctly. Even "magical thinking" doesn't capture all that nuance.
    • PittleyDunkin 2y ago
      > we use cargo cult not to refer to people holding a belief unquestioningly, but to refer to people going through the motions of a ritual without having a strong rational basis for believing it will have the desired effect, and even more specifically it implies that the ritual was borrowed from someone who actually did understand the science behind it and knew how to apply it correctly. I don't really see why this distinction is worth preserving. Dogma (i.e. arbitrary and not-rationally-based belief) seems to be the objectionable part here. Where the dogma originates seems less important.
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      • wavemode 2y ago
        If you don't see why the distinction is worth preserving, then you are free to simply stop using the term yourself.
      • lolinder 2y ago
• pokstad 2y ago
  It’s much easier for people to shame their coworkers over nothings than to do things of actual value for society. Feel good activism.
• btbuildem 2y ago
  First they came for joy plots, now cargo cults?
• tshaddox 2y ago
  "We should avoid the term 'cargo culting.'" "We should avoid criticizing people's speech." Note that both of these statements are criticisms of people's speech.
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• alfiedotwtf 2y ago
  Not once did I read in that lengthy piece that a single Islander has protested the term “cargo cult”, yet here we are… another person detached from the actual situation wanting to take back a word in the hope to not offend anybody. It’s ironic that the author themselves is cargo culting taking back language as an apologetic virtue signal. “Don't you see that the whole aim of cancel culture is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it”