What is the Ignorance Economy?

If there is a Knowledge Economy might there be an Ignorance Economy too? The answer is yes and recognizing this fact will change the way you view, use or invest in digital media and advertising forever.

Thanks to the Internet, digital media and advertising permeates our daily lives. We’re hyper-connected, always-on and crushed by information overload. Our only defense is to retreat, demand simplification and just plain “not know the details.” Recognizing this as an opportunity to cash in, a group of opportunists have stepped forward to foster ignorance among marketers, consumers, legislators… all of us. This has led to the systematic production of “digital ignorance” as the leading commercial product. The result is the Ignorance Economy.

I Dunno — and it Feels Great
The commercialization of knowledge has long been a part of our advancing world yet the active marketing of “not needing to know the details” (the idea of ignorance) presents us with a serious problem. It’s one that the CIA, FBI and top corporate leaders know well: We must avoid becoming a nation of experts who know more and more about less and less.

Thanks to the Internet a fire hose of information is on full blast. “Knowing” is difficult work an age where information is always accessible, comes too fast, too often and in unmanageable quantities. This causes problems. In the end, we’re forced to defend ourselves from information overload by simplifying complex technical products or ideas.

How far are we willing to take our blissful thrill-ride with simplification or “not knowing?” If we become a nation devoid of generalists – the multi-disciplinary people who can “connect the techno-dots” – we risk socioeconomic catastrophe.

Yet in our haste to find solace from obnoxious techno-babble and relentless advertising, hyper-connected, “always on” humans are going further. We’re reveling in what we don’t know – what we believe to be the un-important details. Indeed, knowledge itself is becoming marginalized in a world that only wants the benefits.

Enter the Opportunists
In response, a group of unexpected opportunists who DO know have stepped forward to pioneer in the age of ignorance – to quench the thirst for ignorance. They’re issuing large doses of it to consumers and marketers. They’re enriching themselves wildly. These are the masters of The Ignorance Economy.