Authority Objectivity Bias

The assumption that statements from recognized authorities—institutions, experts, official sources—are inherently more objective than claims from marginalized or unofficial sources. It's not always wrong to trust expertise, but the bias lies in treating institutional authority as a guarantee of objectivity rather than one signal among many. The Authority Objectivist forgets that institutions have their own biases, their own histories of exclusion, their own incentives to protect themselves. They trust the peer-reviewed paper without asking who wasn't allowed into the conversation that produced it.

"The university study says this, so it's objective," he said, unaware of the funding sources, the demographic homogeneity of the researchers, and the centuries of institutional bias that shaped what counted as a "study" in the first place. Authority Objectivity Bias: mistaking prestige for purity.

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 22, 2026

Hard Problem of Objective Truth

The philosophical nightmare of defining what "objective truth" even means, given that all truth claims are made by subjective beings with limited perspectives. If truth is correspondence to reality, how do we access reality directly to check the correspondence? If truth is coherence within a system, whose system wins? If truth is pragmatic usefulness, useful for whom and for what? The Hard Problem is that every definition of objective truth seems to sneak in subjective assumptions, leaving us wondering whether "objective truth" is a real thing we're approximating or a useful fiction that keeps us honest.

Hard Problem of Objective Truth "You keep saying you want 'objective truth' about politics. But the Hard Problem of Objective Truth is that your 'objectivity' looks suspiciously like your personal opinions with better branding. Maybe start with 'less wrong' and work from there."

by Dumu The Void February 23, 2026

Hard Problem of Objective Reality

The metaphysical vertigo induced by asking whether reality exists independently of our perceptions, and if so, what we can possibly know about it. This is philosophy's oldest headache: the world seems real, but everything we know about it comes through senses that can be fooled, a brain that interprets, and language that shapes. The Hard Problem isn't solipsism—most people agree something exists out there. The problem is that we can't climb outside our own consciousness to see reality raw and unmediated. We're forever looking through a window smudged with our own fingerprints, trying to describe the view.

Hard Problem of Objective Reality "We're all arguing about politics, but the Hard Problem of Objective Reality is that none of us are experiencing reality directly—we're experiencing neural interpretations of sensory data filtered through trauma and cable news. Maybe chill out a little?"

by Dumu The Void February 23, 2026