[throwawaymath]

That raises profound and fascinating philosophical questions about the nature of knowledge and happiness. I wonder how many of those people would choose to forego the knowledge of what they don't have if it meant they would be happy again. On the other hand, is that even a meaningful question to ask, given it's not possible?

Which of course leads to the ethical question: is it right for people to live in ignorance if it makes them happy, it it's not their choice? Is it fundamentally better for people to be happy rather than aware of massive inequality (up to and including significant poverty)? How much would be appropriate to hide, for how much additional happiness? Is it better in the long run for some to be unhappy if it brings attention to inequality?

I don't have any of those answers, but they're interesting and challenging questions.

[njharman]

You're missing a key factor. It's not "knowledge of what they don't have" that advertising brings. Advertising is highly sophisticated psychological manipulation, refined over that lat 100 years, that invents "needs" and "wants" in the target subjects. Much of that manipulation is preys upon and creates in securities, inflicts unhappiness and other manufactured "ills". Then promises to relieve them if you buy.

It's artificial. If they just had knowledge, like say wikipedia or ad blocked internet. They would be wanting real things like education, health care, self-determination, not Nikes.

[wickedwiesel]

There is the obvious plug to the Century of Self documentary, if someone hasn't seen it yet but is interested in the subject of "creating needs and wants": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 or https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2d29tf

The documentary relates "The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires."

[malcolmwhat]

You’ve fallen into the fallacy of equating availability of advertisement to availability of knowledge. Knowledge is supposed to be a direct result of some observation of reality, advertising is usually a created and modified reality designed by someone (who is using their knowledge of the psychology behind it funnily enough) which displays the product or service as a requirement for improvement of the person being advertised too’s life. The goal of advertising is to sell, the result of knowledge is to understand. Two very different things.

[Erlich_Bachman]

> is it right for people to live in ignorance if it makes them happy, it it's not their choice?

I wouldn't pretend to answer if it is "right" (what does it even mean), but a lot of people already do live in ignorance. Maybe not in the straight way of ignorance of not being able to recollect some information, but certainly in terms of assigning certain labels and judgements to it. So many people watch a TV with someone having a great time and think/feel to themselves things like "they stole the money somehow to get there", "they had rich parents", "they are not happy anyway", "life is unfair, they got their riches through unfairness", "money is the root of all evil", "money brings unhappiness", "it's not their real life, just some fake instagram story" etc.

[6510]

We all live in ignorance. Our most epic skill is to work with incomplete information. We use to praise people for being able to do arithmetic in their head or memorize large amounts of information. The computers showed that those abilities are only challenging because we lack the "design" for it.

Advertisement, like Instagram or facebook is tailored to give us the impressions the Joneses are doing much better for themselves. Some of this is true, some is designed to tap into this emotion.

I actually woke up 30 min ago iterating over all the things I didn't get in life that most other people had in abundance. It's not the first time I pondered that. After the excuses you mention above I always come back to a thought I had when I was I think 6 years old:

Other peoples lives, their expectations and their opinions are not really all that interesting or important. They could be if they put minimal effort into creating or evolving them. In stead they just copy this stuff from the next guy without review - then dedicate their lives to living up to them.

I consider myself extremely privileged to escape from that formula. I've never written it down before but happiness now starts with having oxygen to breath, then comes having water to drink, food and a place to sleep share the 3rd spot, 4th is having the mind set to think about something, 5th is a sense of safety and the privilege to implement the thoughts, 6th is to be able to share the thoughts and brainstorm, 7th is to have good people in my life, 8th is to be able to pay my bills, 9th a decent set of garments etc

Having what other people are having is still on the list some place but to have 1-4 makes for a fantastic life. 5 includes health and fitness. The rest is really just nonsense by comparison.

What I'm trying to say is that satisfaction is overrated. You get only so much of it, trying to optimize for it just diminishes it.

> the survey question “How satisfied are you with your life?”

Not satisfied? Well good! Time to accomplish something!

[tartoran]

Some of those 'false' narratives are generalities that are not too far away from the truth. It is true that pursuing money does not bring happiness in itself if one is blinded by the pursuit and does not know when to stop. It is true that rich people's offspring are also rich. It is also true that a lot of what's on TV is fake or generally falls into these patterns. Just at Hollywood for example

[bsanr2]

I don't I know the answer is that difficult.

1) Prime Directive: don't introduce knowledge that will make someone's life harder or more complicated if you don't have to.

2) If they have the means to get that knowledge, you're now obligated to fill in the disparity between your quality of life, such that they can be at least as happy as you are.

[wrkronmiller]

This way of thinking is founded upon the notion that blissful ignorance is something societies should strive towards.

Without unfulfilled desires, there is no room for self-actualization. See: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

[bsanr2]

This is less about what one should want for oneself than what one owes others whose lives they are disrupting with their presence. If you take someone's innocence, you have a moral obligation to their mental well-being.

[geonnave]

The ethical question gets to the point of it. IMHO, I think they should be able to choose either or not to "take the red pill".

Thinking about long term, the life of their children, perhaps their children's children, is likely to be significantly enhanced when things like access to healthcare and education become a possibility.

[NPMaxwell]

I recommend remaining in ignorance of how good it feels to take heroin. You don't want to know

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

The Catholic Church has thought long and hard about this, and came up with purgatory.