Cargo Cult Science by Richard P. Feynman (1974) [pdf]

Re:Cargo Cult Science by Richard P. Feynman (1974) [pdf] by hellothere1337 on Sunday August 13, 2023 @06:14AM (#37108453)

Cargo culting is one of those mental models that appears everywhere once you learn about it. Similar to kayfabe in wrestling and politics. 99.9% of humanity basically is winging it daily (by copying the shallowest parts of whatever philosophy/ideology they espouse) pretending they know everything while the 0.01% is honest with themselves and thus are free to question and doubt their own ideas in order to improve them. This 0.1% is mostly invisible despite pushing humanity forward

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Re:Cargo Cult Science by Richard P. Feynman (1974) [pdf] by karmakurtisaani on Sunday August 13, 2023 @06:27AM (#37108531)

Wait, did you just wing those percentages?

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Re:Cargo Cult Science by Richard P. Feynman (1974) [pdf] by tomcam on Sunday August 13, 2023 @07:19AM (#37108845)

76.7% of Hacker News readers believe so

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Re:Cargo Cult Science by Richard P. Feynman (1974) [pdf] by josephg on Sunday August 13, 2023 @07:14AM (#37108814)

I assume you place yourself in that 0.1%? Or was it 0.01%?

I think we're all winging it almost every moment of our lives. Like, relative to domain experts, I'm bad at almost everything I do. (Cooking, driving, talking, writing, planning, etc). I'm only really good at maybe 2 or 3 things. And I think we're all like this. And thats fundamentally ok.

Imagine dividing all of your thoughts between things you've personally invented and things you've heard from others. What do you think the ratio looks like? I think its probably at least 95% other people's thoughts. Maybe 99%. Maybe more.

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Re:Cargo Cult Science by Richard P. Feynman (1974) [pdf] by hellothere1337 on Sunday August 13, 2023 @10:25AM (#37110314)

Nah I'm pretty stupid and follow the herd, its the reason for my success too!

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Re:Cargo Cult Science by Richard P. Feynman (1974) [pdf] by bagacrap on Sunday August 13, 2023 @11:42AM (#37110970)

How could you even tell if you've personally invented something? You don't know what caused a thought to pop into your head. Heck I often forget things I've said, so I clearly forget things I've heard. I could be fully convinced an idea was my own and still be dead wrong.

Luckily you can build on the ideas of others without being a cargo cultist. Simply verify the sturdiness of the foundation before you go adding an extra wing to the house.

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Re:Cargo Cult Science by Richard P. Feynman (1974) [pdf] by drewcoo on Sunday August 13, 2023 @07:15AM (#37108823)

23?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_enigma

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