Delete comment from: Ken Shirriff's blog
So, in short, the idea is that the definitive property of historical cargo cults was not the attempts to emulate superficial appearances of white people's technology, but the lack of understanding that cargo ("tinned meat, steel tools, rice in bags" etc) was created by white people and the belief that it was created by God and white people were stealing it en route, depriving bipocs of their rightful share?
This is actually a pretty widespread worldview among the people on the left of the political spectrum: the deeply held assumption that whenever someone has nice things and someone else has not, this must be because the former stole them from the latter. The idea that all profits come from stolen labor is at the core of the Marxist theory of Capitalism, for example.
I think we already have descriptive names for that though, like "zero-sum mindset". As per above, it's much more widespread than just a bunch of silly cults on Pacific islands, it's sort of a default worldview of leftists and primitive people, so using the term "cargo cult" for that would not do it justice even if we could convince everyone to switch. On the other hand, building bamboo radios is pretty unique and deserves its own designation IMO.
Jan 14, 2025, 2:16:17 PM