{
  "id": "cargo-cult.ritual",
  "term": "cargo cult",
  "sense": "ritual",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "Maintenance that copies the seen actions of others who got an outcome, under a model reading them as setting it though they set nothing.",
  "folk_gloss": "copying the outward form of something that worked, without the mechanism that made it work",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "maintenance.upkeep",
      "model.representation",
      "set.fix",
      "illusion-of-control.over",
      "copy.replication",
      "see.visual",
      "action.deed",
      "others.distinct-entities",
      "get.acquisition",
      "outcome.result",
      "read.information",
      "nothing.absence"
    ],
    "interaction": "The copy is faithful to what could be seen and blind to what did the work; the model links action to outcome through a mechanism it never held, so maintenance runs on indefinitely without any feedback it can read.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "form copied without mechanism",
      "maintenance that never stops because nothing reports failure",
      "another's reach mistaken for a sequence of actions"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "After the Second World War some Melanesian groups built imitation airstrips and control towers hoping cargo planes would return; Richard Feynman borrowed the image for 'cargo cult science' in 1974.",
      "domain": "anthropology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "illusion-of-control.over",
      "type": "is-a",
      "note": "illusion of control whose content is a copy of another's visible actions"
    },
    {
      "id": "habit.grooved",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "habit runs without the self-model reading it; a cargo cult runs because the model reads it as causal"
    },
    {
      "id": "hubris.overreach",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "hubris over-reads reach it has; a cargo cult reads reach where there is none"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "cargo cult",
    "cargo cult science",
    "cargo culted",
    "cargo culting",
    "cargo cults"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-28",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-cargo-cult.ritual"
}