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Ignorance, in the sense of ignoring the world around, you is bliss. I sometimes envy those who can live in their own world and nothing seems to affect their hap

• personjerry 11y ago
  I too am very smart. But more seriously, if you correlate happiness with ignorance and pass that off as something you don't have the power to change, that is a mistake. Happiness and your attitude towards things is something you can work on.
  • eric_h 11y ago
    > I too am very smart. Intelligence, "smartness", and ignorance are all orthogonal. Even very intelligent and very smart people can approach an issue with extreme bias and blatantly ignore (get it ;) news, facts, etc. that contradicts that bias. I would argue that William Dembski[1] is both smart and intelligent, but I would also call him ignorant. [Edit: my point being that people who choose to ignore the things that contradict their bias are happier as a result of their ignorance] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A._Dembski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A._Dembski
    • personjerry 11y ago
      Apologies, I guess that was more of a reference appropriate for Reddit than HN. > I too am very smart. is a reference to the subreddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart https://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart which points out people describing themselves as very smart, often in ironic ways. I realize now that it may have looked like I was actually making a claim about my own intelligence; I was not.
      • Dylan16807 11y ago
        The joke was clear, but as eric_h explained it is largely a non-sequitur when talking about deliberate ignorance.