Ignorance

"Remember back before the Internet when we thought that ignorance was due to a lack of access to information? Yeah…. it wasn't that." - YouTube user comment

Ignorance is definitely a problem in our society today. It’s not because of lack of (or access to) the necessary resource. The Internet, which gives humans unprecedented access to much of the collected wisdom and knowledge of our species, is available to pretty much every single person in Western society. Yet we find people believing the nonsense of conspiracy theories, like QAnon, and those who are in willful ignorance of scientific issues of the day like climate change, and evolution.

I really don’t understand what kind of worldview you have to have in order to sincerely believe that there is a shadowy cabal of Satan worshiping pedophile elites who are out to destroy the President of the United States, all while running a massive child sex trafficking ring. The level of absurdity on its own is incredible. It’s mind blowing that seemingly regular people embrace this nonsense, and it would seems that the same internet, which gives humanity incredible access to knowledge, also fosters incredible ignorance, and cult like behaviors. Have we, as a society, lost our collective ability to be skeptical of the completely absurd?

That our society operates is largely because there are some really smart people out there, while the rest of humanity just shuffle along and take modern society for granted. I don’t entirely blame the ignorant for their ignorance, but our society is doing a good job of failing those who are susceptible to believing nonsense, and that really needs to change. I fear that, because of potential snowball effects, it may already be too late. Cleaning up the mess of ignorance is not going to be easy, if it’s even possible.