I haven't seen anyone else write my thoughts out for me (how lazy), so I'll chime in for the first time. Memes will always circulate in and out of fashion. I

I haven't seen anyone else write my thoughts out for me (how lazy), so I'll chime in for the first time. Memes will always circulate in and out of fashion. I don't think Ken is trying to kill the meme with his own hands (there are, at most, a few thousand hackers who will read this or care what he thinks) or worse, "signal virtue" (I can't imagine why he would care what anyone here thinks, and I'm sure he knows he would find disagreement here). I think what he's actually doing is delivering confirmation to a subset of readers---probably those who already had doubts---that the meme is dead, and it's time to move on. It's the same thing that happens when some faceless corporation's twitter account parrots some joke that used to be funny to make the brand more relatable or trustworthy, but instead it's a faceless hacker news account misusing an insightful term popularized by a great physicist in hopes of also appearing insightful. I also don't think he is writing this for any "culture war" reason; I think the post may have been inspired by pure annoyance---see his 2013 post listing "cargo cult" and other phrases he's "tired of seeing." [1] He doesn't call the phrase racist, or hateful, or offensive, or morally wrong. I didn't interpret the essay to be "policing language" or "catering to imaginary offences [...] on behalf of some supposedly marginalized people" or saying that "everyone should change their behaviour" or starting a "hyperstitious slur cascade." Melanesian history just happens to be where all the interesting information lies, and I thank him for collecting it. Thousands of words about the real reason for the post (lazy hacker news commenters) would be a total waste of bytes. Maybe people are interpreting a shirriff-style super-in-depth essay through the lens of "people only write this much when they're really angry"? If you disagree with ken, maybe you think that the phrase refers to an important enough concept, or you like explaining the story, I think that's a reasonable stance to hold, and you should hold it without feeling so personally attacked you need to comment to fight back. I just think you might be clinging to a dead meme that's already used increasingly by people who like to seem smart by using an indirect term like "cargo cult" instead of "doing things superficially" or similar, and it's your choice whether you want to be lumped in with them. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6313925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6313925