While censorship can slow the spread of "evil ideas", as with nuclear weapons, attempts like these miss the fundamental cause, and stops education on how to dea

While censorship can slow the spread of "evil ideas", as with nuclear weapons, attempts like these miss the fundamental cause, and stops education on how to deal with a potential biological attack. The childish example analogy is Dark Arts in Harry Potter: "Professor, how can we defend against the dark arts if we don't know what they are?" What bothers me is a tendency to segregate knowledge into "too dangerous for citizen consumption" and "certified innocuous". Segregations like these don't just keep people out of the know - they have the perverse effect of stunting growth on those within the special circle [1], as people in the know write off anyone without their clearance level as incompetent, or lacking sufficient knowledge to make an informed decision. [1] http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-limitations-knowledge http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-...