[beenBoutIT]

If you're pragmatic and interested in being happy, I would recommend knowing as little as possible. If you keep learning, there's a point at which you'll know far more than a most people are capable of understanding. From that point forward, communicating with most people will become progressively more challenging and less satisfying. The finite pool of people that you can communicate with effectively will shrink. To survive in the world you'll need to actively work at dumbing your initial thoughts down to simple sentences that don't require a broad range of knowledge to understand.

[8bitsrule]

If you're pragmatic and interested in being happy, I would recommend knowing as much as possible. If you keep learning, you'll be able to understand much better what motivates and hinders other people. The depth of your understanding will enable you to convey complex but practical information in everyday language. Your value as a helpful and effective teacher will be widely recognized. The most effective writers also fall in this category.

[jsoc815]

I'm sorry to say that beenBoutIT is spot on. As someone who actually values learning about a broad range of things, I find the more I learn the fewer people I can interact w/. This is because 1) it becomes more difficult to tolerate the nonsense that the avg. person is steeped in; and 2) because people aren't that interested in knowing things that contradict their imagined existence, their perception of self.

> Your value as a helpful and effective teacher will be widely recognized

Not so much. Think of it w/respect to a bell curve. Most of the people on the curve aren't going to give two hoots about learning. Of the rest, they may thirst for knowledge, but may not appreciate that someone who isn't them has what they perceive to be superior knowledge. All of this is very "interesting" to see play out when you start introducing 'variables' like age, sex, ethnicity/race, even professional titles. And even if you are recognized as being a "helpful and effective teacher," people will not take kindly to not being able to access you on demand, for the most obvious of mundanities.

I spare everyone a religious example and go w/one of my favorite scenes from the Matrix trilogy. IIRC, in pt.II, there's the scene w/ the guy who betrays Neo and co., because he hates his life in Zion. He wants to return to 'life' in the Matrix. He's seated @ a table with a 'steak dinner and a bottle of red wine'. As he takes a bite of the steak, he mentions knowing that the steak isn't really there, but he loves thinking that it is.

I find that character to be representative of a great many people. Sure there are those who don't realize that there is a Matrix, but there are many more who are aware of it, and purposefully choose to pretend otherwise. And they don't take kindly to people saying anything that denies them that steak dinner.

So, learn for your own fulfillment with the understanding that the cost is quite high.

BTW, w/ regard to the OP, I think broad conceptual knowledge is best. Try to know a little about many things so that you can dig into subjects as needed.

[godelmachine]

I agree with you and beenBoutIT

The Matrix scene you are referring to is “Ignorance is Bliss” scene.

[jsoc815]

Thanks for your support. The Matrix Trilogy, IMO, is highly underrated. The 'action' (and lack thereof in parts 2 & 3) really distracted people from understanding what the whole thing was about. And of course, because of its age, I meet many people who've never seen any of the films. Oh well, I guess.

[Viliam1234]

Genes account for about 50% of the variance in happiness. Therefore, if you're pragmatic and interested in being happy, I would recommend knowing as much as possible about genetic engineering.

[atmosx]

This is wrong, on so many levels. I would begin with “being humble, is a good trait”.

[zaptheimpaler]

Pessimism