Fallacy of Exhaustive Rationality

The mistaken belief that only perfectly rational beings—free from emotion, bias, and human limitation—can make valid judgments. This fallacy rejects all human reasoning as insufficiently rational, demanding standards that no human can meet. The Fallacy of Exhaustive Rationality is beloved of those who want to dismiss perspectives they dislike—women are too emotional, minorities are too biased, the poor are too desperate—while exempting themselves from similar scrutiny. It's the logic of "you're not being rational, so your view doesn't count," applied selectively to silence opponents while ignoring one's own irrationality. The cure is recognizing that rationality is not a binary state but a spectrum, and that all humans—including the accuser—operate with bias, emotion, and limitation.

Example: "He dismissed her concerns about workplace discrimination as 'emotional, not rational.' The Fallacy of Exhaustive Rationality had been deployed: her experience was invalid because it wasn't delivered with perfect objectivity. Never mind that his own views were shaped by unexamined bias; exhaustive rationality was demanded of her, not him. The double standard was the point."

by Dumu The Void February 18, 2026

Fallacy of Perfect Consistency

The logical fallacy of demanding that an opponent be perfectly consistent in everything they say or do—across contexts, over time, in every statement—while exempting oneself or one's own side from any such scrutiny. The fallacy ignores that human beings are complex, that contexts change, that learning involves changing one's mind, and that perfect consistency is impossible for any real person or movement. It's the logic of "you said X five years ago, so you can't say Y now," of "your actions don't perfectly match your words, so your words are invalid." The Fallacy of Perfect Consistency is beloved of those who want to dismiss opponents without engaging their current arguments, who would rather dig up old contradictions than address present claims. The cure is recognizing that consistency is not a binary state but a spectrum, and that growth, learning, and context all produce apparent contradictions that are actually signs of life.

Example: "He found a tweet she'd written ten years ago, before she'd studied the issue, before she'd changed her mind. 'Aha!' he declared. 'Inconsistency! Your current views are invalid!' The Fallacy of Perfect Consistency had done its work: avoiding engagement with her current arguments by appealing to her past self. She'd learned, grown, evolved—but to him, that was weakness, not strength."

by Dumu The Void February 20, 2026

Fallacy of Absolute Deprivation (also "Communism Killed Millions" Fallacy)

A form of fallacy that cites the absolute number of deaths attributed to communist regimes—typically the Soviet Union, China, or Cambodia—as an argument against any form of socialism or communist thought, while ignoring context, comparative analysis, or the question of what those numbers actually mean. The fallacy works by presenting large numbers as self-evident condemnation, as if the scale alone settled the matter. It ignores that all modern states have killed millions—colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, democracy—and that the question is not whether atrocities occurred but what caused them, whether they were inherent to the system or contingent, and what the alternatives were. The Fallacy of Absolute Deprivation is beloved of cold warriors and those who prefer moral simplicity to historical complexity. It reduces genocide to a statistic and uses that statistic to foreclose thought.

Fallacy of Absolute Deprivation (also "Communism Killed Millions" Fallacy) Example: "He ended every discussion of socialism with the same numbers: 'Stalin killed millions. Mao killed millions. Pol Pot killed millions.' The Fallacy of Absolute Deprivation meant he never had to engage with arguments about healthcare, wages, or working conditions. The numbers did all his work for him—never mind context, never mind comparison, never mind that capitalism had killed its millions too. Absolute numbers, absolutely weaponized."

by Dumu The Void February 20, 2026

Fallacy of Isolated Deprivation (also "Communism Killed Millions" Fallacy)

A fallacy that isolates the deaths attributed to communist regimes from their historical context, treating them as if they occurred in a vacuum rather than amid civil war, foreign intervention, industrialization, and the collapse of old orders. The fallacy presents communist atrocities as sui generis, uniquely evil, while ignoring that comparable or greater suffering occurred under colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism—often at the same times, in the same places, by the same actors. Isolating deprivation allows the fallacy-user to condemn one system while absolving others, to treat communism as uniquely murderous while forgetting the millions killed by Western powers. It's history as selective memory, atrocity as political weapon.

Fallacy of Isolated Deprivation (also "Communism Killed Millions" Fallacy) Example: "He listed the deaths under Mao without mentioning that they occurred during a brutal civil war, after decades of foreign occupation, amid the most rapid industrialization in history. The Fallacy of Isolated Deprivation had stripped away all context, leaving only numbers—numbers that could be used to condemn, never to understand. His listeners were left with horror without history, which is exactly what he wanted."

by Dumu The Void February 20, 2026

Fallacy of Specific Deprivation (also "Communism Killed Millions" Fallacy)

A fallacy that focuses on specific, often well-documented atrocities while ignoring the broader context of suffering in which they occurred. The fallacy presents, for example, the Holodomor or the Killing Fields as uniquely communist evils, while ignoring that Ukraine also suffered under tsarist rule, Nazi occupation, and capitalist shock therapy—or that Cambodia was devastated by US bombing before the Khmer Rouge took power. Specifying deprivation allows the fallacy-user to condemn particular events while absolving the systems that created the conditions for those events. It's history as highlight reel, atrocity as argument-ender.

Fallacy of Specific Deprivation (also "Communism Killed Millions" Fallacy) Example: "He brought up the Holodomor every time someone mentioned socialism, as if one event could settle the question of an entire system. The Fallacy of Specific Deprivation meant he never had to address the millions who died under capitalism, under colonialism, under 'democracy.' One famine, endlessly repeated, did all his arguing for him."

by Dumu The Void February 20, 2026

Fallacy of Objective Reality

The fallacy of assuming that one's own perception of reality is simply "objective reality," and that anyone who disagrees is either mistaken, deluded, or lying. This fallacy collapses the distinction between appearance and reality, treating one's own perspective as the perspective. It's the epistemological version of the objectivity bias: not just believing you're right, but believing that rightness is not a matter of perspective at all—that you have direct access to the way things really are. The Fallacy of Objective Reality is beloved of those who have never encountered a worldview different from their own, or who have encountered it and found it threatening. It makes dialogue impossible because disagreement becomes not difference but error, not alternative but falsehood.

Example: "He didn't think his political views were views—they were just 'reality.' When she presented a different perspective, he didn't engage; he explained why she was wrong to see what she saw. The Fallacy of Objective Reality meant that her experience, her evidence, her reasoning—all were invalid because they didn't match his 'reality.' She gave up arguing; he declared victory."

by Dumu The Void February 20, 2026

Fallacy of Relative Grievance

A fallacy that dismisses legitimate grievances by comparing them to supposedly worse grievances elsewhere. "You think you have problems? What about X?" The fallacy doesn't address the grievance itself; it just points to someone else's greater suffering as if that negates the original complaint. It's the logic of "children are starving in Africa, so you can't complain about your job." The Fallacy of Relative Grievance is beloved of those who want to shut down discussion rather than engage with it, who would rather change the subject than address the issue. It ignores that multiple grievances can coexist, that suffering is not a zero-sum game, and that pointing to worse problems elsewhere doesn't solve the problem here.

Example: "She complained about workplace harassment. He responded with the Fallacy of Relative Grievance: 'Women in other countries can't even go to school. You should be grateful.' Her harassment wasn't addressed; it was just relativized away. The comparison didn't help her; it silenced her. That was the point."

by Dumu The Void February 20, 2026