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Cargo Cult Go
   

The cargo cults of Melanesia are classic examples of bogus reasoning based on the all too common fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc. Residents of several Pacific islands observed that military forces during World War II built landing strips which were shortly followed by aircraft delivering cargo. They later built their own torch illuminated airstrips, mock antennas and a control tower complete with a guy wearing wooden headphones. A whole religion emerged based on the belief that these recreations would eventually bring back foreigners' planes brimming with cargo.

Richard Feynman coined the term [ext] cargo cult science to describe pseudosciences which attempt to superficially copy some of the trappings of true science without groking their meaning and without any understanding of the scientific method.

I've shamelessly copied the term to refer to a kind of go played by many novices (including, on occasion, myself) where the player copies moves they've seen elsewhere without understanding their meaning. The fact that the moves work for strong players and not for themselves can be quite mystifying. Some examples of cargo cult go include:

  • Memorizing joseki without understanding the reasons for the moves
  • Playing tesuji when they don't work, or the result isn't meaningful
  • Fighting a meaningless ko
  • Playing a ladder incorrectly because it wasn't really read out properly
  • Playing any move without even considering the whole board situation
  • Using the wrong joseki for a given situation
  • Excessive use of Japanese jargon (when speaking about the game in a language other than Japanese)

Author: Fwiffo



This is a copy of the living page "Cargo Cult Go" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.