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Created March 2, 2022 19:13
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Alternative to the term "cargo cult" for technologists
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alternative.md

Background

I was searching for an alternative and landed on this Stack Exchange question. There are a few good suggestions there.

But I don't have enough reputation on that site to answer. 🤷

TL;DR, a possible alternative is "shibboleth".

Example Usage

Expecting Kubernetes to solve all your problems is a common devops shibboleth.

or

The so-called "Unix philosophy" is a shibboleth that deserves reexamination.

Wikipedia entry for Shibboleth

The usage is of course different. Cargo cult is something that someone can be a member of, and a shibboleth is, precisely, a NOUN that refers to the tradition one actually follows. But whatever, it's English. Use your imagination.

@yamatt
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yamatt commented Mar 2, 2022

Oh amazing. Thank you. I didn't realise you need rep to answer a question.

@yamatt
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yamatt commented Mar 2, 2022

It's annoying you can't chat on GitHub. The number of times I've wanted to

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