Thank you all for your responses. I've updated my estimate that this is just a me-problem.
Still, if you are trying to learn material from a field that requires a general framework for understanding, then I'd advise you not to learn directly from an Anki deck, but to first study the original source from which the deck was created. Perhaps you may want to try the List of Cognitive Biases and Fallacies deck, which many people (myself included) have had good experiences with, to determine if your "atrocious experience" was the result of bad luck or bad choice of decks on your part, or if it instead reflects something else about how you are using Anki.
This post is now available on my blog, where I can keep it updated. —Pablo (April 2021)