en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult My Amazon page: www.amazon.com/Matthew-Colvil... My Discord: mcdm.gg/discord Follow me on twitter! / mattcolville And reddit! / mattcolville
I'm not an anthropologist, but I wanted to add some information- -The Cargo cults islands had been visited by missionaries before the US arrived. However, the missionaries brought new diseases with them, which made the people distrust them. - Part of the reason the US army intrigued them was racial integration; seeing African American soldiers treated as (in their eyes) equals was new. I'll add that calling them "pre-civilized" is off the mark. They had a civilization by any definition. I think what you mean is "pre-industrialized" or non industrialized There's an interesting old documentary about this on RU-vid, for those who want to see and learn more.
in addition, John Flum movement had already existed before ww2. then in 1940s, watching U.S. troops and supplies, they believed the John Flum's covenant for richness was verified by this historical event. thus they keep memorial rites, not just for misconception about modern industries and transport mechanisms. and personally i think the term cargo cult itself needs to be replaced with an alternative, because it superficially sounds like a kind of commodity fetishism.
The wikipedia article on cargo cults is very interesting! It talks about the term itself being debated as having a strong western ideological bias within it, like a lot of this is capitalist projection from us. Not the metaphorical idea of reproducing circumstances and going through motions to recreate a result, that part still fits, but the idea that the CARGO was the important part to these indigenous peoples. From what I understand (and to be honest, im not entirely sure, the wording in the article seems weirdly ambiguous sometimes?), sociologists and anthropologists debate that the indigenous people didn't want the cargo and material goods to come back, they wanted the nice people in strange clothes with strange stories to come back. The main benefit they felt from interacting with the Americans was not in economic exchanges, but in social and cultural exchanges. We do tend to see everything through the lens of economics, and it didn't occur to us back then that a smaller-scale society closed off the rest of the world might have very different priorities than ours (or at very least, that their relation to the americans was more complex than just receiving material goods) Another bit I'm understanding here is that the Americans with their runways came to also "represent" the idea of being wealthy, independant and powerful, and that a part of these cargo cults might have been less religious and more symbolic of wealth itself, like building something that resembles a plane becomes like a symbol of status? Like, there was a political angle to this as well. The main thing Im getting from the article is that, what these cults represented to these peoples, and why they were put in place, was very complicated, and the biggest issue with the popular concept of "cargo cults" is that its a big oversimplification.
I named my game company Cargo Cult Gaming because I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just building thatch airplanes hoping the gods in the sky will drop some pants on my head.
7:37 "They weren't dumb, they just knew different things than we know." That is such a good way to put it. Hands up who in these comments could actually survive on a small Pacific island with wicker, bone, and stone as your crafting materials. I imagine most of us would go hungry very fast.
Now I have a term for that. I've done it many times throughout my life when I was younger. Especially when I entered the work force. I would find myself going through the motions with no understanding. I tend not to do that now and I find that I'm a generally happier person. One example that is kind of funny is from my early youth. I grew up (and still live in) the south and we used to have bonfires pretty often. One day, I decided I wanted to build a fire at my babysitters house. She very much enjoyed the go play outside method of babysitting. So I convinced the other kids to do what I wanted them to and we began collecting sticks and leaves and pinestraw and making a pile. After I while, I expected the pile to burst into flames at any moment. Somehow, in all the fires I'd been around, I'd never seen someone light it. I thought that the fire would start on it's own. I got in trouble that day because we started the pile in their driveway. The sitter's husband was pretty mad when he had no place to park that afternoon.
I've found the opposite to be the case. I spent many years noticing faults, questioning them, and fighting for improvements. Doing what I'm asked to do has lead to fewer conflicts and more happiness on my end.
Did you make a joke on purpose or are you giving into "cult cargo thinking"? I'm just using this phrase you are all using hoping to get some sort of social gratification. Am I doing it right?
this is how magic works in my setting, people experiment with throwing stuff at the wall until something sticks, write it down, then people follow that set of instructions to a goal. its interesting how you bring up not knowing how to fix stuff, that could be an interesting path to follow.
This is why, when I teach new players, I don't put the number on their character sheet, I put the equation. Example: For Atk Bonus, I don't put their actual bonus. I put "DEX+PRO" or something similar. They have to add it all together every time. That way, it's not just some +7 that they don't understand. They know where that number came from and what it means.
Derrick Boswell that is an awesome advice, and it is in fact how I learned to play the game! Only a couple years ago I felt confident enough to forgo the equation and just put the final result, knowing at this point where I was supposed to look at if I wanted or needed to break it down to its single components!
I'm an instructor at a college and this is so true among many students. They look for the set of instructions to get results without really understanding why
6:05 - "No one shows up because they want to learn the game." [PANICKED BREATHING] Y-y-yeah guys caN you imagine being such a gross nerd? Ah-ha Ah-hehhhhh... [HEAVY BREATHING]
That reminds me of my first year in "highschool"/college prep/whatever the closest equivalent is... My maths teacher presented us with some formulae we had to learn to solve the problem, she just wanted us to learn them by heart and punch the numbers into our calculator and hit the solve button... When I tried to ask what the individual bits in the formula did, she would respond with "it's the formula" "But what does that specific part do?" "It solves the thing" "... Yea, but what do the individual steps do?" "It solves the thing" Of course, the reason I asked this is so I could actually understand the formulae, and not just do it by memory, because what if I remember wrong? If I understand the formula, I can kinda recreate the stuff, or see when it doesn't make sense... Thank fuck that my main subjects were languages, if I was reliant on that broad to teach me maths for 3 years I would go insane...
I ran a 2-year long 5e campaign without ever reading the rules. I just made it up as I went and leaned into whatever the players, who did know the rules, said. I 100% understand what those islanders were doing.
Thank you for this wonderful insight in to our brains. Sometimes I think we become obsessive compulsive about things because it is easier to allow ourselves to find a pattern in how we accomplish something rather than break it down. Also, there is a player in my group that is definitely the cargo cult thinker. We have been playing for nearly 2 years and he hasn't gotten the phb and makes no effort to look at anyone else's until I insist he figure out something and then he opens the book and picks the first thing he sees. At first, I allowed myself to be annoyed, then I realized that he was having fun and no one else at the table cared. Again, thank you.
Ah yes Cargo Cult Thinking, the very thing that keeps the Adeptus Mechanicus afloat. Love this video, I think it's great and helps remind us that some times we need to slow down and really learn things instead of rushing. I had this issue early on when I brought newcomers into my game where we showed them as we went and they learned the motions but never understood the why very well, and were noticeably better players on the rare occasion they asked me to sit down with them after a game and explain things.
Thank you. Your videos are extremely entertaining, simple and quite short for the amount of information they grant me. Even this short video where you described a single term helps me a LOT. Thanks, and please, don't stop.
Been DMing for about 13 years now and I find your videos extremely helpful. Thanks for all this great content, I, and my players, are having more fun than ever.
I'm reminded of half my players... "what do I roll?" "What do you always roll when you use your skills?" "A 12 sided one?" Same group for 2 years and still dealing with this mentality.
I work in IT-support and i see a kind of magical thinking a lot of the time. It usually goes like this: "Something was done that is slightly tech-related, and now X happens." So you get stories like; "A guy replaced our lightbulbs yesterday, and now software X won't start"
The activities of software in the background don't exactly help. Heavy reliance on the windows registry, background changes to the windows registry, opaque error-handling messages, use of error numbers for a wide array of problems, etc.
Ive never heard this tern before but I had heard of this type of thing happening. Really great video Matt, thanks for a useful cultural/history lesson!
I'm watching this because I was going through some of your videos and you said this. But I am crazy distracted because those elements in the background are so damn cool. Now I need to go watch the Fifth Element.
Great video, as always! A related concept I've found useful in life and D&D is "Trading Zone". In your anecdote, it's the proverbial stretch of beach between the runway and a nearby village where both groups mix, mingle, and come up with new ideas. The relative value or utility of a resource, service, or concept can make these kinds of interactions fascinating.
College. College in the US is cargo cult thinking. We are told college degree=job. So many learn too late that isnt the case, and certainly not always in the field you choose. But still a great video as always. Love the extra attention to the phrase and certainly something I will try to be aware of in my D&D game.
Last time I played, the game was called AD&D and it was 1995 or so! DM'ed my first adventure (5e) last night. Binged a lot of these videos to prep. Thank you!!
I read a short story back in the 80's that involved the equivalent of LARPing in a virtual reality. I believe it mentioned cargo cults, or it was another story in the same issue of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine or Science Fiction and Fantasy. That was where I first learned of cargo cults. It had a short explanation of what they were.
i was thinking about adeptus mechanicus in particular, the machine cult, as they are called. all incense and ointments and praying to make the vehicles work. =)
Sort of but not really, because in the 40K universe, faith influences reality. The Cargo Cult is only a phenomenon in a setting where faith does not influence reality. Going through the actions of running an airfield does not cause cargo planes to stop by, on Earth. Going through the actions of praying to the machine spirits does actually fix broken down vehicles, in 40K.
Not really. Part of they prayers and the rituals in 40K is going through the motions of actually fixing the machines. That's the whole point. They know *what* to do to fix their stuff, but they don't know why that fixes it, so they think it's a ritual, that got more and more elaborate over the centuries. It's the cargo cultiest of cargo cults.
Insomnant - The entire point of 40K is that faith does NOT influence reality and that it's a measure of the depth that humanity has fallen into ignorance that most people believe such superstitious nonsense. The bedrock of the Emperor's wisdom ten thousand years earlier (now outlawed by the state) was the Imperial Truth - religion and blind faith are crap and science and reason are the only way to reach a condition of freedom and enlightenment. Chanting "The Emperor Protects" as you charge into battle does not stop you from catching a bullet and likewise the rituals of the machine cult always include basic maintenance like changing the oil and replacing worn parts, all the while having faith that it was the appeasement of the machine spirits that make an engine continue to hum along. Even the elements of 40K that can be most easily be mistaken for magical or supernatural events like the works of the warp, telepathy, daemon resurrections, and the immensely powerful extradimensional xenos referred to as Chaos 'Gods' are in reality the result of scientific phenomenon which can be countered by technology such as Gellar fields and psychic limiters. Of course since the advancement of any new technology which isn't recovered through the archeology of humanity's past is strictly outlawed, we're pretty much screwed to an eternity of darkness and faithful ignorance. As Lynneiah's comment states, cargo cults are the perfect analogy.
After going through your videos in the past few months, I reluctantly clicked the link to your book. After reading the reviews of the book and finding out it was something of a murder mystery, I bought it. Looking forward to it.
Reminds me of an early episode of Critical Role, where the group took the blood of a basilisk and rubbed it over some allies who where turned to stone to cure them. Despite trying it multiple times, Matt was insistent that this wasn't actually the way to cure a basilisk's petrifying gaze - they actually needed to distil a potion that contained basilisk blood. Same deal with the cargo cult. They only know that something happens and it's related to this object, but not the intricate details of how it works.
I like Matt more and more with every video. I personally hate not knowing how things work. If I don't know how stuff works, how can I break it down and improve on it? Right now I am in the process of writing entirely custom rules for our "DnD" game (it's not really DnD anymore). I pitched this idea of having a world that is governed by the elements (think something along the lines of The Avatar (animated)) instead of gods. Every player character is an adept of one element and they get a set of abilities tied to it. For example the classic archetype of a Fighter would be an Earth adept with "Iron Skin", "Might of the Mountain" traits. But you can also have a Fire adept that can light his weapon on fire and "Cauterize" his wounds. A Ranger can be an Air adept with "Guide Arrow" or "Quickness of the Wind". But the classic DnD rules wouldn't support that. So I resolved to write my own. And that can't be done properly without first understanding the original rules in the first place.
I really wish I could take a class or read a guide or something on "how to interpret tabletop game design," because any time I'm reading the Player's Handbook or the DMG or anything like that, I can never really break through into the principles that went into the construction of any given rule. I see a ton of people writing about... well, mainly balance, and I find myself kind of baffled because to me a class is just a class, a spell is just a spell. I have no way to mentally knock things together and suss out what's a "powerful" or "weak" ability beyond playing with it.
Val Ritz It gets easier if you try and put things in a real world perspective rather than a game table perspective. For example, if you understand that a round of combat is supposed to represent six seconds of in game action, you begin to understand better what is practical to do in one turn. A high level fighter has become so efficient with her weapon that she can attack multiple times with it within six seconds. A wizard's speciality is less focused on such things, so is slower with his weapon. He can cast spells, which take a moment of concentration to cast. I hope that helps a little bit. If you have another gamer at the table that you think you could have these discussions with to help you answer "why?" and put things in a different perspective, that may help you break things down better. And think about the game differently.
What you are talking about is the "metagame". You learn the rules just fine, but dont find yourself thinking about the implications of certain rule applications. That is normal. It only comes with experience and deliberate thought. The thing you are experiencing where everyone seems to get these design concepts is the artificial knowledge boost people get from the internet. Counter-intuitive ideas are seen as commonplace to the internet culture of tabletop D&D. To someone new, it sounds like all these people have some kind of savant knowledge of the game, but that is not so. Just play the game and enjoy yourself. Videos like this can be very useful, but all that really matters is if you and your players are enjoying the game you are playing. I'm sure Colville would agree. Also, take most discussions about game balance with a serious grain of salt. There are a lot of "armchair GMs" who will tell you that X combination is too strong/weak but have never actually played it, they are essentially guessing. Maybe take note of it for later consideration, but don't let naysayers and rules-lawyers on the internet tell you how to play your game. Myself included. ; )
I think it's important to preface this with the fact that table top games are MUCH more than just their mechanics, being a game of social interaction and play. But disregarding the social facet and concentrating on the core, crunchy mechanics of a game, interpreting them deals a lot with understanding what a play phase looks like. I.E. in DnD a turn, and subsequently a round. Different game operate under different styles and can drastically change due to that. For instance, DnD 5e uses turns where a player has an Action, a Bonus Action, and a Move Action. But a game like Dark Heresy only has one Action that can be split depending on what you want to do (I.E. Aim and shoot vs moving and shooting, etc). But if you can understand the main interaction loop, then you can get into the nitty gritty numbers, like action economy and damage per turn, etc. Mostly because many tabletop games rely on structured play phases, so that informs how much a player can do in a segment of the game. After you understand how the phases work, you can now compare actions between different players. I.E. the action economy of a Fighter vs a Ranger in 5e. Since you can analyse how many interactions a player has in 5e per turn, you can compare and contrast at the base line of simply being able to do things. I think, though, what you said at the end of your comment is probably the most important. When people wrap their heads around the mechanics, they're usually just playing the mechanics in their head, or on paper. Theory crafting is just a very restrictive analog for the interactions in a session-proper. Like when a physicist uses a friction-less vacuum as the baseline for their equation.
The base math of D&D 5e proficiency (2 to 6) + ability modifier(-1 to 5) against AC and Saves. Because these numbers fall into a tight range we have what is called Bounded Accuracy meaning targets will get hit even some of the time with higher AC of 20. Where does unbalancing happen? Effects or features that push past this basic math. If your AC goes above a 22 you hit a range where many low level encounters can hit you on only a crit or less than 10% of the time. When a creature has +7 to hit or spell DC above 15 they are capable of consistently beating AC and saves. Some spells and abilities unbalance the math or remove it. Usually if you read character creation guides these are blue or gold must have features. The Blink spell makes you nearly invulnerable 50% of the time because nothing can target you. Portent rolls of a diviner wizard just force a new dice roll number. A fighter adding 1d8 to hit with precision strike maneuver is swinging above his weight class. An ability or spell which breaks the math should have a resource cost either time per rest, spell slot, or action ecomony. A free breaking of the math is generally OP. Ability to land a hit is generally more dangerous than adding damage. Balancing can also be seen two ways balance against monsters/npcs and balance against other players' characters. My friend has a half orc totem barbarian with great weapon master feat (-5 hit +10 damage and reckless feature). He was for a while killing two and three creatures a turn. I'm running a fighter 1/ blade warlock X I'm using full plate and shield. I get hit less because of my higher AC, but if I compared my damage I'd look lacking. My utility also "balances" my character through magic and invocations like sleep spell (which ignores save DC and uses hit points) and disguse self at will. Usually people get upset if others characters look more powerful. A fighter at low levels might feel interior to rogue's sneak attack damage. Extra attack and fighting style will bring their damages back closer together, but rogue main combat use is sneak attack damage. Fighters have survivability with AC, hp, and other features. If a class or subclass excels at too many things. For the appropriate cost or not associated with the bonuses. They become unbalanced.
I think that playing around with things is usually the best way to understand. When you start out with games like DnD it's hard to know what resources will help you in what situations. One thing that is always useful no matter the game is action economy. If you can increase the number of actions your character is able to take it will almost always be a good choice.
Sometimes, Cargo Cult thinking makes sense. Like with Maven and TomCat. You could look those up, and think they are pieces of software, but they are actually vengeful spirits, who will crush your deploy server unless you offer the proper litanies.
"When anything goes wrong in your set of instructions, you will not understand how to correct it." I'm getting flashbacks to a class I took in high school about writing java code.
I'm really glad there's actually a term for this. I've always been against the idea of doing without understanding, and a lot of the time I'm asked why. Why do you care if you understand all the subtle details if you know if you just follow the steps you get the result you're looking for. Professionally I'm a baker, and even looking at a simple recipe like a cheesecake.. I can give anyone a list of instructions to make a cheesecake, but that only gets you so far. If you need to change or tinker with it, you need to understand why you're putting all of the ingredients in, or if you need to expand or reduce, what moves on a 1 to 1 ratio and what dosent. If you want to make it a chocolate cheesecake should the recipe change at all, or can you just put it in without it changing anything? Or even in something like World of warcraft I like to understand my characters rotation and stat values in terms of WHY is something the best stat for me, what is it offering me that the other stats arn't rather then just looking online to know which stat is best and never thinking about it again. Truly understanding every detail of something is so important, if you just do without really considering why you're doing it you're limiting the potential of what your working with to just the most basic levels. :( Always ask questions! Always try and learn the ins and outs of everything you're working with.
Finally bought your books. Started and finished Priest in the same day. It's honestly in my top 3 sci-fan fantasy novels of all time. Just below The Name of the Wind, just above Dune. Can't wait to start Thief
It's interesting to think how this "We're doing A to make B happen, but we don't fully understand why", particularly as it relates to technology, was one of Aasimov's greatest fears for future society. And now here we are. A society of people who use technology, and know the "rituals" to make that technology perform a task, but they don't understand why or how.
This was my biggest anoyance with 4th edition and the character creator software. It hid the math and therefore the understanding of where the numbers you had came from. The problem was that in the end there was so many options that you needed the software...
I was promised a comment by a cultural anthropologist explaining the behavior and thinking of islanders after the US left these islands at the end of WW2.
you just described why I could never understand calculus in high school. Teachers constantly expected us to know the rules on how to get results without ever bothering to explain the processes; for me it was magical thinking
Thank you! I'm one of those ppl that needs to know the WHY behind everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. If the wife asks me to do a task I'll ask a few WHY's to make sure I can accomplish the goal she has in mind. In some cases she's making assumptions that are not accurate. I'm a new DM and SOOO much of everything I read assumed a ton of knowledge. I was always googling and youtubing for knowledge to piece it all together. Eventually I found ppl who had the knowledge I needed and could answer simple or complex questions. I'm glad to find ppl who are patient and take the time to explain what to them are simple things about the game.
Interesting video! Though I have to admit that the first time you used the phrase, I looked it up on Wikipedia. And each subsequent time you used it, I knew exactly what you were talking about!
Something I do to deal with this sometimes as a DM is, if I want a player to make a skill check using a different stat than is usually used for that skill (e.g. making a WIS based Religion check), then I will ask the player if they are proficient in the skill I want them to use and depending on their answer I will tell them to roll a d20 and add the stat I want them to use (e.g. Wisdom) and also add their proficiency bonus (or not). I do this because I have said things like "make a Religion check, but use your Wisdom modifier" (which is the way I would prefer to do this) and some players get it and some players just get really confused. So, instead of remembering which players will understand the less crunchy phrasing, I just always go through the slightly longer back and forth. But even though the rolling part took longer, once I have the result I can trust that the player added the right things and get right back into the story. I *like* knowing all the why's and how's of how the system I'm running/playing works, I think it's fun. I actually have less fun if I don't know the mechanics. But I know that I'm an exception.
Hey! finally something you're talking about that DOESN'T pertain to me. I've always needed to know why things are, and generally try (and often manage) to find better / more efficient ways of doing things. This has it's drawbacks of course but it's part of my personality
Oh boy. We have a player with this mentality at my table, and while she's been playing DnD with us weekly for well over a year, her hand still needs to be held. I like her and she's a sweet gal, and despite that not only the DM, but the players assist her (she plays a Rogue), she never retains the information.
I try to play dnd with my friends sometimes and almost all of them are like this. However I don't believe it to be their fault, I just think I'm teaching them wrong.
I was a player in a group who had a player like this. Not only did she not retain the rules, but she was very indecisive. That's a bad combination. The DM let her take the time, and, man, did her turn during battles drag on. A time period to learn the rules is a given, but at some point, it's gotta be "sink or swim." In my games, I would have forced her to take the dodge action after 30 seconds of being unable to decode what she wanted to do on her turn in combat. Then maybe by her next turn she'll have decided. Battles are fast. Decisions need to be made now. It may seem heavy handed, but every other player at the table will appreciate the DM who doesn't let one player bog the game down.
A player in my game is having the same struggle. Luckily he is a barbarian, so I can almost always tell him that his character would probably become enraged and charge.
I don't know enough about this situation but my first thought about those that don't retain info is that either 1) it is not important to them, 2) they don't grasp it or 3) they lack the ability to grasp it in the way it is presented (communication or ability fault). My first thought is KISS the info by putting it on a note card and help them us it like a crib sheet. Often that does it but like I said YRMV
Man, this explains why people can be so obsessive about lore in roleplaying settings. This is actually also something covered by what's called "Mimetic Theory"; someone wants something, perceives a model (the radio tower) and a desired result (the cargo). So they emulate the model. That is where the cargo cult ends, but something interesting happens in Mimetic Theory when people get more or less what they wanted out of emulating the model; the model and the person emulating them come into conflict over the reward and how to get the reward. Then, the blame is shifted to a scape-goat. Someone who is obviously doing this wrong. And I feel that this happens so incredibly much in the RPG community, maybe because we are so preoccupied with pretending to be something you're not.
This is EXACTLY what I need. I have friends that complain that I make them play with paper character sheets when they want to use auto character sheets that do auto dice rolls and stuff on their tablets. I make them use paper sheets to they can see the mechanics underneath the numbers. I'm gonna share this to explain my reasoning. I don't mind auto rollers, but I'd like for them to understand them first. They've followed along for this first campaign so far, but I think they could understand better with this video. Thanks.
When I was learning 5e rules, using the Beyond online character sheets actually helped me learn the mechanics, because when you roll, say and attack or ability check, it shows you the modifiers used at the bottom of the screen. Remember that everyone learns best in different ways!
I don't know if anyone mentioned Richard Feynman, but he talked about cargo cult science in his lectures and books, and his perspective and explanations are pretty fantastic.
Very well explained. I think I'll use a condensed version of this at the start of my next game. I play with very intelligent and also socially intelligent people yet I don't expect them to understand everything. The unspoken premise was that I invite them over and they have - after a little introduction and a previous character creation - fun! Though it often happens that they use standard techniques like just attacking and not moving. Not using spells properly because some spell explanations seem to be difficult, they sometimes forget that the outcome of conversation or a confrontation is not solely based on their (eloquent) talk or behavior but also based on their stats and therefore on their skill to intimidate, persuade, etc. Of course a good speech is rewarded with a bonus and the mindset of their opposition comes into play but it is interesting to see that they often want to just use everyday rules of life in the game. "I'll kill this rat"... Well it is dark and the rat is under a table 50 feet away. "I'll sell all that I found to the vendor". The vendor is not there because it is night time. Yet it is fun to play with them and they do want to learn. On the end it is a great thing to come together to play DND. Sorry for my long and not so eloquent, native german way of writing. Thank you Matt
very interesting reminds me of Lord of the Flies both the Cargo cult story and the Lord of the Flies i learn in High school...didnt think realize the relation between the 2 till i saw this vid...pretty awesome and you would be correct in your assessment of getting caught up in this dilemma.
