Ignorance is bliss...

Everybody who knows me will surely have figured out that the title is not something I really believe, but a conversation starter.

As a humanist, I do believe that knowledge is foundational for who we are as humans and when it comes to information, the more the better! Knowledge-based information is helping us form a logical, ethical, just view of the world around us.

However, the social media space is absolutely infested with bad and divisive information that not only does not contribute to the advancement of knowledge but does indeed dial down our collective IQ to a number not far from our shoe size. Which is a sorry state of affairs considering that after, give or take, 200,000 years of continuous improvement of the human species there is such a simple way to turn that around and sink us in the ignorance of the Dark Ages.

So, believe me, I hear your outrage when your LinkedIn feed gets invaded by conspiracy theories, wacky religious content, climate change deniers, political lobbyists, racism, sexism, animal cruelty and a whole array of incorrect, improper and plain crazy content. And, similarly to you, I am tempted to jump in and tell the people promoting this content what I believe. I actually did that several times, just to start a fire and realize that the content has spread now to my whole network. Yes, without my rightful outrage the unfortunate content might have died a quick and painless death by ignorance, but now is spreading to a forever wider audience because I could not help myself! Such is the power of social networking.

Today, again, I saw some such content in my feed, and one of my connections was lamenting about why we have to see it. I was tempted again to answer, but that would have promoted the whole content, which only helps the person promoting that material. If you want that content to go away, ignore it, don't feed it. When it comes to crazy content and bad-faith actors, ignoring the content is the only good answer.

And, if you really want to act on it, I would suggest you flag it on LinkedIn as conspiracy or whatever word describes that toxic information. And privately message your connections to not reply to these messages, since all it does is filling all their's network feed, including yours, with that content undeserving of our attention.