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Manifests and cargo cults

For five years in commercial development, I have accumulated a number of complaints about manifestos. And I decided that it would be fun to make a manifesto on this topic. I present to you:

Manifesto Manifesto


  • Manifests write obvious things. This is one of them.
  • The previous paragraph is a joke about recursion.
  • Before you use advice from someone else's manifest, find evidence that the advice works.
  • This also applies to the previous paragraph.
  • If the manifest says something is correct, this does not mean that all points are correct.
  • If you find a mistake in the manifest - it is useless.
  • The previous paragraph is an example of an error.
  • Manifests tend to become a cargo cult.
  • Add 1 cultist point for each point you don't understand. Including the previous one and this one.
  • This manifesto was signed by Bob Martin, Linus Tovalds and Donald Knut.
  • Of course not. But if this manifesto became more valuable for you, add 2 more cultist points to yourself.
  • Add another 5 points.
  • If you are inclined to explain things from the end and you are angry that they are not obvious to others.
  • If you did not at least have an approximate scoring, 3 more penalty points.
  • Count points and draw conclusions.

He cooked it specially for April 1. And now, I want to invite you to discuss manifests.

What is the essence of the manifesto? Briefly express thoughts that seemed good as a result of reflection.
It sounds good, but in practice it creates a problem: if we lay out the final thoughts, we explain from the end.

And well, if people take an interest in what was meant. But most often the picture is completely different - there are simple and short sentences, 80% of those who read believe that they understood them. Only for some reason, each in its own way.

And this is not corrected by the documentation for the manifest. It will be read only by those who have already realized that they do not understand what is written there. And to understand that you “don’t understand” is that task. To do this, abandon your first interpretation, notice that you doubt it. And when you share your thoughts with others, they will answer something like “yes, everything is obvious right there, you don’t understand ?!”. Well him. It is much easier to understand it once, albeit in a peculiar way.

For my taste, manifestos are a great tool for people who are already in context. Items from them can be used as a short link to the information discussed. But, when we immediately go from the wording of the manifesto, the simplicity of form only hides the meaning. It only seems to us that we all understood, but because of this sensation, we have no motivation to dig deeper. (I described this mechanism and its causes in an article on cognitive distortion)

And a lack of understanding generates a cargo cult.

There is one example of an erroneous interpretation, which I really love for clarity - interlanguage homonyms. For example, the word dock (dock) - in English may not mean the place of repair of ships, and the pier. Even checking the context does not save here, because we can still talk about ships. Combinations of such nuances sometimes unfold the meaning of what has been said by 90 or even 180 degrees.

Therefore, every time I am told a simple and obvious thought, I prefer to doubt whether it is so simple and obvious and check it with a couple of silly questions. Complex problems always have simple, easy to understand, wrong solutions ( Murphy's Laws , Arthur Bloch). And I want to make sure that my interpretation is not one of these solutions.

The second point that is important here is that the author of the manifest is in context. The meaning of what he wrote is obvious to him. Due to the illusion of transparencyhe does not see other interpretations. He simply cannot imagine himself in the place of a person who, for the first time, sees a manifesto. And so I am wary of writing them.

What do you think of the manifestos?

PS: And yes, despite the fact that I myself wrote the manifesto above - after a week I could not go through it without a penalty)

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