Metagroupthinking

The insidious, higher-order groupthink where a community becomes collectively convinced of its own immunity to groupthink because it is aware of the concept. This creates a blind spot of superior self-perception. The group (e.g., rationalist communities, skeptic circles, critical theory collectives) uses its knowledge of cognitive biases and logical fallacies as rhetorical weapons against outsiders, while its own sacred cows—shared ideological assumptions, preferred theorists, in-group jargon—go unchallenged. Awareness of the trap becomes the very mechanism of entrapment.

Example: A "rationalist" mastermind group meets weekly to make decisions using Bayesian models. They proudly discuss confirmation bias. However, they all share a deep cultural assumption that technological solutionism is always correct. When a member questions the ethics of their AI surveillance project, they're met with sophisticated charges of "status quo bias" and "akrasia." This is Metagroupthinking: using the language of debiasing to defend their own unexamined, shared bias.

by Dumuabzu February 5, 2026