The Commoner Effect

When you’re a super smart person that hangs out with too many “regular” people and therefore lose your intelligence

“Riya, why did you get a 95 on that history test? Maybe if you didn’t go out to dinner with your commoner friends you could’ve gotten 100.”
^ meanwhile the “commoners” are just other people the same age as you
This is the commoner effect

by da riff April 26, 2024

Commonism

The lack or deterioration of common-sense within an individual.

I was startled when my engine stopped working, even though I knew my check engine light was on it was my commonism to blame for this unsettling situation.

by Kade Devros May 6, 2024

common fixture

One that is regularly found, and likely not to be removed.

He’s a common fixture at the pub, don’t make eye contact or he’ll start telling you longwinded stories.

That character on the the show is a common fixture, I don’t think they’ll kill her off.

by KathyBates November 21, 2021

Confirmation Bias of Common Ground

The shared, tacit assumptions that enable communication and cooperation within a group, maintained by collective confirmation. When everyone in a community starts from the same axioms and continually reinforces them through discourse, the axioms become "common ground"—so obvious they need not be stated. This bias is functional: it reduces negotiation costs and enables coordinated action. It is also a prison: it makes the group's foundational premises invisible and unassailable from within.

Confirmation Bias of Common Ground Example: In a corporate meeting, everyone confirms that "shareholder value" is the ultimate goal. This common ground is never debated; it's the platform upon which all other debates happen. An outsider asking "Why maximize shareholder value?" is met with confused silence—they've violated the Confirmation Bias of Common Ground. The group's bias is so deeply shared they've forgotten it's a bias.

by Dumu The Void February 11, 2026

Confirmation Bias of Common Sense

The process by which certain beliefs become elevated to the status of "common sense" precisely because they have been confirmed so often, by so many, for so long, that their confirmation is no longer visible as an active process. Common sense feels like direct perception of reality, not a hypothesis, because its confirmation history is buried in cultural memory. This bias hides the contingency of these beliefs, making alternatives seem not just wrong, but insane. Common sense is the ghost of confirmation bias after it has become invisible.

Confirmation Bias of Common Sense Example: In 1700, it was common sense that the Earth was young and that kings ruled by divine right. These weren't beliefs; they were the backdrop of reality. Questioning them was folly. Today, common sense includes human rights and germ theory. Confirmation Bias of Common Sense reveals that yesterday's common sense was just a massively confirmed hypothesis, and today's will be tomorrow's historical curiosity. The bias is in forgetting that all sense was once nonsense.

by Dumu The Void February 11, 2026