In the early 20th century, it was observed that some Melanesian cultures would carry out rituals that would emulate Western technologies and behaviors, such as building runways and control towers out of wood and clay. They were doing this in the hope that material wealth, such as food, would be delivered to them. These odd rituals arose because they had previously observed cargo being delivered via Western planes and falsely concluded that it was the runway itself that summoned the cargo.
Nowadays, within programming, we use the terms cargo cult or cargo culting to broadly describe copying patterns and behaviors without fully understanding their true purpose and functionality. When programmers search for a solution online and copy and paste the first piece of code they find without consideration as to its reliability or safety, they are partaking...