Glossary

Preference falsification is the act of publicly expressing an opinion or support for a norm that one privately rejects, driven by the belief that revealing one’s true preference would lead to social disapproval or retribution. It is the individual lie that, when multiplied across a populat

Pluralistic ignorance is a social psychological phenomenon in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm but assume that their peers accept it, and therefore go along with it publicly. This creates a collective illusion of consensus, even when most individuals actually hold

The quasi‑statistical organ is Elisabeth Noelle‑Neumann’s term for the subconscious human faculty that continuously monitors the distribution of opinions in society, not to find the truth, but to gauge which views are gaining or losing ground so that the individual can avoid the threat of

A statistical fluctuation is a temporary departure from equilibrium due to random thermal motion. In the Boltzmann Brain paradox, extremely large fluctuations—producing entire conscious brains—are invoked as a challenge to cosmological models that predict infinite time or space, because su

A Boltzmann Brain is a hypothetical self-aware entity that spontaneously arises from a random thermal fluctuation in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, complete with false memories of a past and a surrounding world. It is named after physicist Ludwig Boltzmann and serves as a philosophi

A willful, self-reinforcing refusal to engage with information that contradicts one’s group identity or comfort. Often socially engineered, cultivated ignorance is a central component of Bonhoeffer’s concept of stupidity, as it is actively maintained by the individual to avoid moral discom

The just-world fallacy is a cognitive bias where people assume that the world is inherently fair and that individuals get what they deserve, leading to victim blaming and a disregard for structural injustice.

Victim blaming is the act of holding the victim of a crime, accident, or any misfortune partially or entirely responsible for the harm they suffered, often driven by the just-world fallacy.

A moral and psychological state, identified by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in which a person has surrendered their capacity for independent thought, becoming impervious to evidence and argument, and easily manipulated by authoritarian forces. It is distinct from low intelligence; rather, it is a

The obligation of every person to act ethically and to oppose injustice, even when it places one in danger. Bonhoeffer lived this by participating in the resistance against Hitler. He argued that inaction in the face of evil makes one complicit, and that moral responsibility requires activ