This is straight-up Baudrillard simulacra/simulation.

The moment you say "Dao" (or "Agile", or "methodology"), you've already moved from the thing-in-itself to a sign living inside a sign system. That sign can be useful, but it can't be identical to what it points at.

> “The Agile that can be PM’d is not Agile.”

That’s exactly the stages of simulacra in miniature:

- Faithful copy: "Agile" names a set of lived practices that correspond to reality.

- Masks/denatures: cargo-cult rituals distort it (standups-as-status-reporting).

- Masks absence: the org performs Agile theater to hide that genuine agility is gone.

- Pure simulacrum: "Agile" becomes a self-referential brand/signifier (certs, metrics, tooling) that relates primarily to other signs ("Agile maturity model", "story points velocity"), not to any actual working output.

That's a reductionist take.

For a reductionist, it might be better understood as - step outside of your usual mode of thinking. Remember that you don't know everything. Or just - take time to stop and smell the flowers. Try to spend more time noticing and less time analyzing.

There are things that are difficult to communicate directly in the reductionist mode of thought - and are intended to have meaning at multiple levels of abstraction. You have to think a bit more laterally.