[michaelt]

Sure, people should be more thick-skinned.

But if I'm pulling out the 'cargo cult' metaphor, it's because I'm about to criticise someone for unquestioningly repeating things they've seen elsewhere, without understanding the details.

So if I repeat some nonsense urban legend as fact, in order to criticise them for taking nonsense urban legends as fact - that's going to make me look kinda dumb. Even if it is an urban legend I heard from a nobel prize winner - I can't criticise the mote in my brother's eye until I've removed the beam in my own eye.

[TeMPOraL]

I think the reason some people have problems here is that the term "cargo cult" is in the middle of transition from being merely a reference to a story (which you need to explain to someone half the time you utter the phrase), into being an independent phrase with its own established meaning - i.e. taking meaning from how it's used, instead of the original story.

(Now I wonder whether Tamarian language is really referencing stories, or referencing the popular understanding of those stories. Sokath, his eyes closed.)