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Comment by tomjen3 | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that it is not that simple, because just doing what others do works very well in most cases and you don't have the time to start questioning _everything_ - why do you shower in the morning? Why eat three times a day?

I don't want to defend cargo-cults, but people copy because it works.

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No, it's worse than that. I have seen this before. There is an entire portion of the business world that merely goes through the motions of being successful businesses rather than actually being businesses at all. It's really weird.

You could look at it as investment fraud with plausible deniability. Take money, hire consultants, look busy. The only thing is, I don't think it's that explicit or intentional. I think there's a breed of person out there in the business world who does not grasp the distinction between actually doing something and imitating the appearance of doing it.

There's always been something wrong, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, with the idea of getting a degree solely in "business"... I think I get it now.

Reminds me of a shirt I saw somewhere from a cartoon I've never seen: "What's this? I'm going to go do some Science on it!" Seems very similar to: "I'm a business man"

I could not agree more. Business is something you do with stuff, but you have to have stuff to do business about. Business is not something that can be done in a void.

A lot of the fakers and cargo cultists are trying to do business about business to do business... they're not delivering any value because they don't know how.

Don't forget the cult of personality. Find someone you like more than yourself. Analyse. Imitate. -- prophet-oriented religion in a nutshell.

"I don't want to defend cargo-cults, but people copy because it works."

My definition of cargo-cult is when you copy everything except the parts that are hard or make you face unpleasant reality.

... except the part that actually makes the difference.

Indeed, I even thought of adding "...except the part that makes it work" as more accurate.

I think these comparisons are a little off base. If i am not hungry at night, I normally skip the dinner. If I am on a lazy mood on a weekend, I skip my shower/shower in the evening. You don't have to question everything, but you shouldn't do anything that doesn't make sense to you. and that's barely the case in big business environment.

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