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."

by Dumu The Void March 8, 2026

Kampf Bias

A version of the Boghossian-Lindsay-Pluckrose Bias emerging from the "Feminist Mein Kampf" incident, where the existence of a successful word-substitution hoax is used to dismiss entire fields, ideologies, or publications as intellectually bankrupt. Kampf Bias assumes that because a journal or blog accepted a text with politically charged word substitutions, the entire enterprise it represents is fraudulent. A Zionist publication accepting a passage originally from Mein Kampf (with names changed) proves that Zionism is Nazism. A feminist journal accepting a passage with gender terms swapped proves that feminism is intellectually empty. A conservative magazine accepting a passage with political terms substituted proves that conservatism is just a rebranding of its opposite. Kampf Bias ignores that such hoaxes reveal weaknesses in editorial processes, not the worthlessness of entire fields; that acceptance reflects the judgment of a few editors, not the validity of an entire tradition; and that the hoax itself is a performance, not a proof. But for those who want to dismiss without engaging, Kampf Bias provides perfect cover: one hoax, one acceptance, and an entire domain of inquiry can be written off forever.

Example: "He'd never read a word of feminist theory, but he'd heard about the Mein Kampf hoax. Kampf Bias meant that was enough: if a feminist journal could be fooled by a word-substitution trick, feminism itself was fraudulent. He never considered that the hoax revealed editorial failure, not intellectual bankruptcy; that one acceptance didn't invalidate decades of scholarship; that his dismissal was itself a form of bias. Kampf Bias had given him permission to stop thinking, and he took it gladly."

by Abzugal March 8, 2026

Sokal Bias

A form of cognitive bias and meta-bias where you dismiss all criticism, questioning, and opposing positions by labeling them under a single, easily attackable category—typically "postmodernism" or "relativism"—inspired by the Sokal Affair. Sokal Bias is the intellectual equivalent of putting everything you disagree with in a box labeled "nonsense" and refusing to open it. It allows you to maintain your worldview without ever engaging with alternatives, to dismiss complex arguments with a single word, to strawman entire traditions of thought. Sokal Bias is particularly common in online debates, where "postmodernism" has become a catch-all insult for anything the speaker doesn't understand or doesn't like.

Example: "Every time she raised a critique, he called it 'postmodern nonsense.' Sokal Bias had reduced all complexity to a single label, all challenge to a single dismissal. She could have been making the most rigorous argument in the world; it wouldn't matter. The label did all the work."

by Abzugal March 8, 2026

Boghossian-Lindsay-Pluckrose Bias

A version of Sokal Bias named after the architects of the "Grievance Studies Affair"—the hoax papers submitted to academic journals in fields like gender studies, queer theory, and fat studies. The Boghossian-Lindsay-Pluckrose Bias uses the existence of these hoaxes to dismiss entire fields as fraudulent, ignoring that the hoax revealed weaknesses in peer review, not the worthlessness of disciplines. The bias assumes that because some bad papers were accepted, all work in these fields is suspect; because hoaxes succeeded, the fields themselves are hoaxes. It's Sokalism weaponized, using a single scandal to condemn entire traditions of scholarship.

Example: "He cited the grievance studies hoax as proof that gender studies was worthless. The Boghossian-Lindsay-Pluckrose Bias had done its work: one scandal, entire field dismissed. He never read the actual scholarship, never engaged with real arguments. The hoax was all the evidence he needed."

by Abzugal March 8, 2026

Science Communication Bias

A bias where individuals, including professional science communicators, present and interpret science through the lens of their own views, paradigms, values, and assumptions. Science Communication Bias recognizes that there is no neutral, objective way to communicate science—every choice about what to emphasize, what to omit, how to frame, and what language to use reflects the communicator's perspective. A science communicator who believes in technological solutions will emphasize different findings than one who emphasizes systemic change; one who trusts industry will frame risk differently than one who is skeptical. Science Communication Bias doesn't mean science communication is worthless; it means we must be aware that it's always coming from somewhere, always shaped by someone's perspective. The bias is especially problematic when communicators present themselves as neutral conduits of "the science" while actually selecting, framing, and interpreting through their own paradigms.

Example: "The YouTube science channel presented itself as just reporting the facts. But Science Communication Bias was at work: they emphasized studies that fit their worldview, downplayed those that didn't, framed uncertainty as certainty when it served their narrative. They weren't lying; they were just communicating from a perspective—and pretending they weren't."

by Abzugal March 9, 2026

Bias of Exposing

A bias where individuals or groups engage in "exposing" others—revealing alleged wrongdoing, hypocrisy, or scandal—while being selectively blind to similar or worse behavior in their own side. The Bias of Exposing is what makes partisans obsessive about the other side's scandals and oblivious to their own. It's the bias of the whistleblower who only blows the whistle on enemies, of the accountability activist who only holds the other side accountable. The Bias of Exposing is a form of motivated perception: we see clearly what serves our interests and are blind to what threatens them. It's the cognitive engine of hypocrisy, the fuel of selective outrage.

Example: "He spent hours exposing corruption in the opposing party but never mentioned scandals in his own. The Bias of Exposing wasn't deliberate hypocrisy; it was genuine blindness. He saw what he was motivated to see and was blind to the rest. His outrage was sincere—and selective."

by Abzugal March 9, 2026

Hegemony Bias

A bias and meta-bias that combines objectivity bias (thinking one's views are objective), neutrality bias (thinking one's position is neutral), impartiality bias (thinking one's judgments are impartial), and normality bias (thinking one's way is normal) into a unified framework of assumed superiority. Hegemony Bias is the cognitive architecture of cultural dominance: the assumption that one's own perspective is not just a perspective but the perspective—objective, neutral, impartial, normal. Everyone else is biased, partial, interested, deviant. Hegemony Bias makes its holders incapable of seeing themselves as others see them, incapable of recognizing their own position as a position. It's the bias of empire, of privilege, of power that has become invisible to itself.

Example: "He thought his views were objective, his position neutral, his judgments impartial, his way normal. Hegemony Bias had made his perspective invisible to him—not a perspective at all, just reality. Everyone else was biased; he was just correct. The bias was invisible to him, which is how it worked."

by Dumu The Void March 10, 2026