Definitions by Dumu The Void
Fallacy of Sole and Exclusive Blame
The fallacy of attributing all responsibility for a complex phenomenon to a single cause, agent, or system—most famously, the claim that "this is solely and exclusively the fault of communism." The fallacy ignores that complex historical events have multiple causes, that responsibility is often distributed, that systems interact, that context matters. It's the logic of "communism killed millions" used to end discussion, as if that single factor explained everything—ignoring colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, war, famine, and the myriad other forces that shaped the same events. The Fallacy of Sole and Exclusive Blame is beloved of ideologues who want simple stories, who need clear villains, who can't tolerate complexity. It reduces history to morality play, causation to blame, understanding to accusation.
Example: "He blamed communism for every death, every famine, every failure—as if capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism had killed no one. The Fallacy of Sole and Exclusive Blame had simplified history to a single villain, a single story, a single cause. Complexity was sacrificed for certainty; understanding was sacrificed for blame."
Fallacy of Sole and Exclusive Blame by Dumu The Void March 10, 2026
Exposism
The treatment of "exposing" others—revealing scandals, calling out wrongdoing, holding people accountable—as an ideology in itself, detached from any particular commitment to justice, truth, or constructive change. Exposism is exposing as an end rather than a means, a performance rather than a practice, an identity rather than an action. The exposist doesn't expose to improve things; they expose to build status, to gain followers, to feel righteous. The content of the exposure matters less than the act itself. Exposism is placebism and debunkism's cousin: where debunkism is debunking as ideology, exposism is exposing as ideology. It's the culture of call-out made manifest, accountability as spectacle, justice as performance. Exposism flourishes on social media, where exposure generates engagement, where being the one who revealed the scandal confers status, where the act of exposing matters more than what happens after.
Example: "He'd made a career of Exposism: revealing scandals, calling out hypocrites, holding people accountable. But he never stayed to fix what he'd exposed; he just moved to the next target. Exposure was his product, not his purpose. The damage he left behind was someone else's problem. Exposism had made him famous and useless."
Exposism by Dumu The Void March 10, 2026
Da Mihi In Manu Mea Fallacy
A fallacy or meta-fallacy where a person demands proof, evidence, or sources from their opponent as if the opponent were a servant obligated to provide whatever is requested, whenever it's requested, in whatever form is demanded. Named from the Latin phrase meaning "give it into my hand," the fallacy treats the opposing debater as a butler who must fetch whatever intellectual goods the demander wants, regardless of relevance, burden of proof, or the demander's own obligations. The butler fallacy is typically combined with moving the proofpost: first demand a source, then demand a better source, then demand a different kind of source, then declare all sources inadequate. The goal is not to find truth but to exhaust the opponent, to put them in a servant position, to establish dominance through endless demands. The butler fallacy is the signature tactic of bad-faith arguers who treat debate as a power game rather than a search for understanding.
Example: "He spent three hours demanding sources, then rejecting them, then demanding different ones, then rejecting those. Da Mihi In Manu Mea Fallacy in action: he'd appointed himself the master and her the butler, expected to serve whatever proof he demanded. When she finally asked what evidence he would accept, he said 'I'll know it when I see it.' He never saw it."
Da Mihi In Manu Mea Fallacy by Dumu The Void March 10, 2026
Theory of Illogical and Irrational Variables
A social theory proposing that human behavior, social systems, and collective decision-making are fundamentally shaped by illogical and irrational variables that cannot be reduced to rational calculation or scientific models. These variables include identity (who people believe they are), interests (material and symbolic stakes), social control (mechanisms that shape behavior), mass control (management of populations), power (capacity to impose will), force (coercive capacity), hegemony (cultural dominance), mass psychology (collective emotional dynamics), and culture (shared meanings and practices). The theory explains otherwise puzzling phenomena: why politics and law are almost always incompatible with scientific recommendations (because they answer to identity and power, not evidence); why people consistently vote for terrible politicians (because voting is about identity and belonging, not policy); why science and logic themselves can function like religions or ideologies (because they become identity markers, not just methods). The Theory of Illogical and Irrational Variables doesn't deny that reason exists; it insists that reason operates within a field of forces that are anything but reasonable. Understanding these variables is essential for understanding why the world so stubbornly refuses to conform to our models of how it should work.
Example: "He couldn't understand why people kept voting for a corrupt politician despite overwhelming evidence of incompetence. The Theory of Illogical and Irrational Variables explained it: identity trumped evidence. Voting wasn't about policy; it was about belonging. The politician represented 'us'; the evidence came from 'them.' Reason never had a chance against identity, interests, and the psychology of the tribe."
Theory of Illogical and Irrational Variables by Dumu The Void March 8, 2026
Intentional Ignorance Theory
A theory, inspired by Peter Burke's "Ignorance: A Global History," proposing that ignorance is not merely the absence of knowledge but can be deliberately created, maintained, and deployed for strategic purposes—goals of power, identity, social control, mass psychology, and hegemony. Intentional Ignorance Theory argues that ignorance is often an active achievement, produced through specific practices and institutions. Modern manifestations include dismissal tactics like Sokalism, Kampfism, and Boghossianism-Lindsayism-Pluckroseism; biases like Objectivity Bias, Unbiased Bias, and the Fallacy Fallacy; and rhetorical strategies like Neo-Sophism and Scientistic Sophism. Historically, it appears in colonial suppression of indigenous knowledge, institutional cover-ups, and elite cultivation of public ignorance. The theory reveals that ignorance is often not something to be overcome but something actively produced—and that understanding how ignorance is made is as important as understanding how knowledge is made.
Example: "The tobacco industry spent decades cultivating Intentional Ignorance about smoking's health effects—funding contradictory research, attacking legitimate science, creating doubt where none existed. They weren't ignorant; they were making ignorance. Intentional Ignorance Theory explains how knowledge is suppressed, how doubt is manufactured, how entire populations can be kept in the dark by those who benefit from their darkness. The theory doesn't just describe ignorance; it reveals its politics."
Intentional Ignorance Theory by Dumu The Void March 8, 2026
Bias of Impartial Things
A pervasive bias where human creations—institutions, systems, artifacts, knowledge—are treated as if they were impartial, objective, and free from the human interests that produced them. The Bias of Impartial Things projects neutrality onto things that are anything but neutral: science shaped by funding and paradigm, technology embedded with values and assumptions, culture carrying centuries of history, economics built on particular theories of human nature, law encoding power relations, secularism reflecting specific historical struggles. The bias treats these human products as if they fell from the sky, as if they weren't made by particular people in particular times with particular interests. It's the ultimate fetishism: forgetting that humans made the human world, and treating that world as natural, neutral, inevitable. The smartphone isn't impartial; it's built with minerals mined by children, designed by engineers in Silicon Valley, powered by algorithms trained on biased data. But the Bias of Impartial Things sees only the device, not the world that made it.
"The algorithm is impartial—it just processes data." Bias of Impartial Things: treating a human creation as if it weren't human. The algorithm was trained on historical data full of bias, designed by engineers with assumptions, deployed by companies with interests. But the bias sees only code, not context. The thing seems impartial; the world that made it disappears. Impartial things are never impartial; they're just things whose making we've forgotten."
Bias of Impartial Things by Dumu The Void March 8, 2026
Bias of Impartiality
A cognitive and metacognitive bias where individuals or institutions claim to occupy a position of pure impartiality—above the fray, free from bias, beyond politics—while systematically favoring certain perspectives, interests, or outcomes. The Bias of Impartiality is the belief that one can be truly impartial, that such a position is possible, and that one occupies it. It ignores that all knowledge, all judgment, all observation comes from somewhere—from a body, a history, a culture, a set of interests. The claim to impartiality is itself a move in a power game: it positions the speaker as neutral and everyone else as biased, without ever examining the speaker's own position. Judges claim impartiality while embodying the law's history of exclusion. Journalists claim impartiality while framing stories within dominant narratives. Scientists claim impartiality while working within paradigms shaped by funding, culture, and power. The Bias of Impartiality is not that we fail to be impartial; it's that we think we can be.
"I'm just being impartial, looking at the facts objectively." The judge said this while wearing robes that symbolize centuries of legal tradition, in a courtroom built on land stolen from indigenous peoples, applying laws written by property owners to protect property. Bias of Impartiality: the belief that one can stand nowhere while standing firmly on somewhere. Impartiality is not a position; it's a claim of power."
Bias of Impartiality by Dumu The Void March 8, 2026