Evidence-Based Bias

The specific bias where one treats "evidence-based" as an automatic warrant for one's position and a automatic disqualifier for others', without actually engaging the quality, relevance, or interpretation of the evidence. Evidence-Based Bias operates when someone says "the evidence supports my view" as a conversation-ender, without acknowledging that evidence is always interpreted, that different evidence can support different conclusions, that evidence alone never dictates policy or values, and that "evidence-based" is often claimed by all sides. It's the bias that turns the legitimate principle of grounding claims in evidence into a rhetorical cudgel.

Example: "He kept saying his position was 'evidence-based' as if that settled everything—pure Evidence-Based Bias, using the word 'evidence' to avoid actually discussing what the evidence showed."

by Dumu The Void March 13, 2026

Whac-A-Mole Bias

A cognitive bias where a person focuses obsessively on the negative actions, flaws, or problems associated with minority groups or marginalized individuals, while systematically ignoring external factors, structural conditions, and the equivalent or worse actions of majority groups or society as a whole. Like the arcade game, the biased person's attention darts from one negative example to another, "whacking" each perceived problem with criticism—but never looking at the broader context or the behavior of the dominant group. A commentator who endlessly highlights crimes committed by immigrants while ignoring crimes committed by native-born citizens exhibits Whac-A-Mole Bias. A pundit who blames poverty on poor people's choices while ignoring systemic economic forces exhibits the same pattern. The bias lies in selective attention: problems affecting or caused by marginalized groups are hypervisible, while identical or worse problems among dominant groups are invisible. The result is a systematically distorted picture of social reality that reinforces existing hierarchies.

Example: "He could recite every statistic about crime in minority neighborhoods but had no idea about white-collar crime rates or political corruption—Whac-A-Mole Bias, whacking every visible mole while the whole lawn is infested."

by Dumu The Void March 17, 2026

Epistemological Laziness Bias

A pervasive cognitive and metacognitive bias on the internet and social media, characterized by the lazy demand for proof, evidence, or sources from others while making no effort to conduct even a simple internet search oneself. The epistemologically lazy person expects others to do their research for them, treating every claim as suspect until someone else provides documentation—yet never applying the same standard to their own beliefs. This bias complements Objectivity Bias perfectly: the lazy debater believes their own worldview is simply "objective reality" while demanding endless evidence for any view that differs. On YouTube comments, Discord servers, Reddit threads, and X/Twitter, they appear constantly: "Source?" "Proof?" "Cite?"—asked not in good faith but as a conversation-stopping weapon, a way of shifting labor onto others while performing skepticism. The irony is that they could answer their own question with thirty seconds of searching, but that would require effort, and effort is exactly what epistemological laziness avoids. It's a form of Butler Bias (demanding others do your work) specialized for online debate—a way of feeling rational while being merely lazy.

Example: "He demanded peer-reviewed sources for her claim about a basic historical fact—something he could have verified in seconds. Epistemological Laziness Bias: using the language of evidence to avoid the work of actually finding it."

by Dumu The Void March 19, 2026

Projection of Bias

A cognitive bias where one projects the accusation of bias onto others while remaining blind to one's own biases—assuming that bias is something others have, not something that affects everyone. Projection of bias operates when someone says "you're biased" as a conversation-stopper, never acknowledging their own situatedness; when they analyze everyone else's motivations while assuming their own are transparent; when they treat bias as a flaw that only opponents possess. The projection lies in the blindness to self—the assumption that one occupies a privileged position outside the fray, that one's own perceptions are clear while others' are distorted. It's the meta-bias: the bias of thinking oneself unbiased.

Example: "He could list every bias his opponents had but had never examined his own assumptions—projection of bias, treating bias as something others have while remaining invisible to himself."

by Dumu The Void March 19, 2026

Invisible Pink Unicorn Bias

A form of cognitive bias where any socially constructed concept—a nation, a legal system, a currency, a cultural norm—is treated as if it were as arbitrarily interchangeable as the Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU) of satirical theology. The bias consists of dismissing the reality or significance of social constructs by reductively equating them to any other construct, claiming that because both are “made up,” they are equally fictional or equally arbitrary. For example, replacing “NATO” with “the Kingdom of Abzu” in an argument about geopolitics, and then treating the serious analysis as absurd because the substitute is obviously made up. The bias ignores that social constructs have material effects, histories, institutional weight, and differential power—not all constructs are equivalent just because none exist in a pre-social vacuum.

Invisible Pink Unicorn Bias Example: “He dismissed national borders as just ‘invisible pink unicorns’—as if the fact that they’re socially constructed meant they had no real consequences at border crossings, citizenship, or war.”

by Dumu The Void March 23, 2026

Flying Spaghetti Monster Bias

A rhetorical bias where one parodies a serious concept by substituting it with an obviously fictional analog—the Flying Spaghetti Monster—and then treats the original as equally absurd. The bias often appears in debates about nation-states, ideologies, or legal systems: inventing a fictional counterpart (e.g., “Free Popular West” for NATO, “Kingdom of Abzu” for the EU, “USSR 2.0” for Russia) and then engaging with that parody as if it were the actual subject. This moves discussion away from substantive analysis into performative dismissal. The bias mistakes the possibility of parody for the absence of real-world referents, ignoring that institutions have histories, agency, and consequences that a satirical replacement does not capture.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Bias Example: “He kept calling NATO the ‘Free Popular West’ and treating it like a joke, committing the Flying Spaghetti Monster Bias—using a made-up name to avoid discussing actual military alliances.”

by Dumu The Void March 23, 2026

Russell’s Teapot Bias

A form of bias derived from Russell’s teapot analogy, where one asserts that the burden of proof lies entirely on the person making a positive claim, and then uses this to lazily dismiss any claim without engaging it—essentially weaponizing the principle to enforce an asymmetric burden. The bias occurs when someone demands impossible or arbitrarily high standards of evidence for claims they dislike, while exempting their own beliefs. It often combines with Laziness Bias: instead of researching, they simply declare “the burden of proof is on you” and treat that as a complete rebuttal. The Enforced Burden of Proof Bias is its close relative, where the burden is actively used as a rhetorical tool to silence rather than to clarify.

Example: “He dismissed decades of historical research with ‘prove it’—Russell’s Teapot Bias, demanding impossible evidence while offering none for his own counter-claims.”

by Dumu The Void March 23, 2026