What You Don't Know. . .

I'm glad there are so many stupid people in the world, because it makes me look so much smarter than I really am. I'm also glad there are so many ignorant people in the world, because it makes my own ignorance less obvious. But why would mankind be this way? Because it seems that less stupidity and ignorance might actually be bad for the human race. Here's why.

Ignorance and stupidity are two different things. Most folks should know this, though many choose not to. Stupidity is what most politicians practice, ignorance is what most voters practice. Stupidity is what marketers count on, ignorance is what consumers practice. Yet, can governance or economy survive without them both?

A fully educated and thoughtful populace could be hard to govern. Everyone would have an opinion and be capable of informed debate. No governmental structure can account for this. In the USA, it would mean that politicians could no longer win elections with just money and appearances. They would be required to demonstrate their education and intelligence to gain the trust of the voters. Campaign promises would have to be backed up with actual data and plans. I imagine after the nuts were sorted out there would be very few candidates left willing and able to serve.

And as difficult as getting elected might be, running our government at all would become even more problematical, given nobody would simply, blindly follow orders. No army could function in the face of such individual independence. Federal revenue would be scanty indeed in the face of an informed populace; few taxes would be owed after crafty citizens took every advantage of the tax code.  In fact, citizens would likely decide governments were better at building roads than butting into their private business and vote most of Washington out of existence. 

Of course, it would be far worse in countries where lies, fear, and force are used to rule. The populace would be fully aware better treatment was possible. Revolt would rise everywhere, assassinations wipe out tyrants, or more likely, such citizenry would simply slip away in the night. There might develop a large population of migrant citizens traveling from one advantaged country to another, seeking the best returns on their social investment.

Consumerism would be in even worse shape. Advertising could no longer make imaginative claims and trust consumers to be duped. The mass of informed shoppers would pursue sales and coupons, stock up when seasonal prices were down, and spontaneously form co-ops in response to locally high prices. Marketing would be completely changed.

Even bigger victims would be Wall Street and almost all financial institutions. With full knowledge that investing is gambling and investors are simply con-men seeking to gamble with someone else's money, stock markets would crash, never to recover. Investment companies, loan companies, mortgage companies, even insurance companies would be marginal entities at best, ruled by true market forces rather than inflated speculative values.

Then again I could be wrong, considering I'm not as smart as all that. Maybe someone will tell me the real answer to why ignorance is bliss?

Wait - if it's gonna hurt, maybe I don't wanna know.