The term you may be looking for is: Rational Ignorance Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential bene

The term you may be looking for is: Rational Ignorance Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide. Ignorance about an issue is said to be "rational" when the cost of educating oneself about the issue sufficiently to make an informed decision can outweigh any potential benefit one could reasonably expect to gain from that decision, and so it would be irrational to waste time doing so. This has consequences for the quality of decisions made by large numbers of people, such as general elections, where the probability of any one vote changing the outcome is very small. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance]