It’s fun asking kids, if 100 is knowing everything and zero is knowing nothing, how much do you know? And they’ll answer something like 80 or 90.
Then you ask them how many words they know in the dictionary. Then you ask how many words they know in other languages. And then they realise they don’t know much at all and agree the answer is something more like 0.0000000000001. (needs more zeros)
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.
— some asshole who was unfortunately also intelligent
I made a deal with myself a long time ago, my primary value:
I’d rather know than be happy.
Reality is cold and bleak. We have so many social constructs meant to obfuscate that fact. I wouldn’t change my values, but they aren’t a path to a shiny, happy life, and blissful ignorance values are among the biggest reasons our civilization’s outlook is so bleak.
A CEO has no desire to see how those they laid off are doing months later, or the children they hurt polluting a water source, or their own current employee’s subsistence living conditions despite the revenue they generate. They should have to see the pain they’ve caused to line their pockets, as should shareholders who applied pressure in willful ignorance for maximum profit(bliss), but ignorance is bliss.
Which is why, though alluring, the bliss of willful ignorance is a dangerous and antisocial value to live by.
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