Meta-Thinking

The practice of thinking about how you are thinking. It's stepping back from the content of your thoughts to examine the patterns, assumptions, biases, and frameworks shaping them. Meta-thinking involves asking: "What mental model am I using? What goal is driving this line of thought? What am I not considering?" It is the cognitive equivalent of looking at the source code of your own mind to debug flawed logic and upgrade your processing algorithms.

Example: During an argument, instead of just defending your point, you pause and engage in Meta-Thinking: "Why am I so emotionally invested in winning this? Is my goal to find truth or to protect my ego? Am I using a binary win/lose framework when a more nuanced one is needed?" This shifts the conflict from a battle to a collaborative debugging session.

by Dumu The Void February 4, 2026

Critical Thinking Biases

The meta-collection of cognitive biases that specifically distort, undermine, or corrupt the practice of critical thinking itself. These are not ordinary biases that affect any judgment, but biases that attack the very tools we use to think clearly about bias. They include the bias to consider one's own thinking "critical" while dismissing others' as biased, the bias to apply skeptical standards asymmetrically (strictly to views one dislikes, leniently to views one favors), the bias to treat "critical thinking" as a label one claims rather than a practice one performs, and the bias to mistake cynicism for critique. Critical Thinking Biases are what happens when people weaponize the language of reason against reason itself—using "just asking questions" to spread doubt, demanding "evidence" only from opponents, treating one's own unexamined assumptions as "first principles." They are the pathologies of the proudly rational.

Example: "He thought he was immune to bias because he was a 'critical thinker'—but his Critical Thinking Biases meant he applied skepticism only to views he already distrusted, never to his own."

by Dumu The Void March 13, 2026

Critical Thinking Bias

The specific cognitive distortion where one mistakes the performance of skepticism for the practice of genuine critical inquiry. Critical Thinking Bias operates when someone believes that merely asking questions, demanding evidence, or pointing out uncertainty constitutes critical thinking—regardless of whether those questions are good faith, whether the evidence demanded is appropriate, or whether the uncertainty is relevant. It's the bias that produces the "just asking questions" pseudo-skeptic, the sea lion who "just wants evidence" for claims they've already decided are false, the debunker who treats their own cultural assumptions as universal standards of reason. Critical Thinking Bias turns the tools of rational inquiry into weapons of dismissal, transforming "critical thinking" from a practice of genuine openness into a performance of intellectual superiority.

Example: "He wasn't critically thinking—he was performing Critical Thinking Bias, 'just asking questions' in bad faith while treating his own assumptions as too obvious to need examination."

by Dumu The Void March 13, 2026

Inverse Thinking

1. A cognitive technique used to challenge and expand personal perspectives by deliberately reversing one’s usual way of thinking about a subject or idea. This involves considering the opposite of what is typically believed or assumed, such as viewing an attribute once thought undesirable in a positive light. The goal is not necessarily to adopt the opposite belief, but to explore and examine the subject from a different angle, encouraging new insights and challenging ingrained judgments.

2. A mental exercise where one takes a commonly held view or assumption and actively imagines it in its inverse form, questioning why something is perceived the way it is, and considering what value or meaning might exist in the opposite perspective.

By practicing inverse thinking, she began to see her wrinkles not as signs of aging, but as beautiful markers of the wisdom and experiences she had gathered over the years.

by NakedEdmund February 19, 2025

Wishful thinking

When you are with your gf who’s 20 years older than you and you want her daughter who you were wanting to date until her mom came and blocked that from ever happening. And you have thoughts of a future with the daughter that’s wishful thinking.

It’s Wishful thinking to fantasize about a possible future with ex gfs daughter that’s your age.

by 2fast2furious21 June 11, 2025

Wishful thinking

On your part.

Hym "Stop trying to impose your wishful thinking on me by democratic fiat. You're a one trick pony. You don't control reality as a matter of democratic fiat, cripple. And what you are doing now is trying save your own hide."

by Hym Iam July 27, 2025

k0 thinking

Originates from game theory, (the field of math, not the Youtube channel.) The 0 is replaceable with any number, usually no higher than k1. Describes how many "levels" of thinking someone exhibits.

k0: I am going to play scissors.
k1: I know Bob usually plays paper, so I'm going to play scissors.
k2: Bob knows I usually play rock, so he will play paper, and to beat him I will play scissors.
k3: Bob is aware that that I know he usually plays scissors, and that I'll play rock to beat him, so he will play paper. To beat that, I will play scissors.
etc.

1: What the hell? The highway was completely jammed yesterday, but the second I think to come take this shortcut, the highway's empty, and the damn shortcut is jammed!
2: What the hell kind of k0 thinking is that man? Did you not think about how everyone else ALSO knows about this shortcut?

by Anthony Hotel August 26, 2025