I have always hated the "ignorance is bliss" expression because people take it too literally. It's a loose expression, not serious conjecture about the nature of life. I am close friends with a seasoned psychologist and once upon a time, was also briefly studying psychology. I have spent a lot of time thinking about precisely this subject and expression. Here are my thoughts.

I grew up in a dirt poor family in a poor town. Trust me, ignorance is not bliss. If you've ever been around truly ignorant people, you would know this by heart. Maybe, you just haven't witnessed the animalistic suffering of truly oblivious people. Let me tell you, it's endless and leads to no where. Even the average person lives a rather boring and meaningless life, without ever knowing the thrill of being intellectually and financially empowered. The truth is, "knowledge is power" trumps "ignorance is bliss" every damn time, EVERY DAMN TIME! I have personally experienced this. I got into crypto early on ( I made this account in Jan 2015 ) and now, I am doing very well for myself. I can do just about anything these days and it's beautiful. I've never been happier with my family. It's all because I spent the last nine years or so studying economics, geopolitics, and blockchain tech. Again, knowledge is F'ing power!

I am in total agreement with Jordan Peterson on this subject. In short, this notion that "intellectuals are often depressed" is misunderstood nonsense, it's what psuedo-intellectuals tell themselves to justify their depressive garbage and to convince themselves that they're super smart. It's also an avoidance technique. I would know, I use to believe that type of garbage but that's when I was a freaking teenager, not a grown ass man. What may I ask is intelligent about meaningless suffering? What's intelligent about getting into your own head and solving none of your problems? What's intelligent about having a counter-productive mindset, a hopeless mindset? What's intelligent about getting lost in philosophical / psychological traps while your life erodes in objective reality? What's intelligent about being a passive player in an active world? NOTHING! TRULY intelligent people solve their damn problems, empower themselves through knowledge and keep their house clean, as Jordan Peterson would say. This has been true for thousands of years. I mean, would you have rather been a surf or a Medici type of person?

Anyway, as someone that's spent a lot of damn time reading into geopolitics and society, I think people are being overly dramatic and biased about the current state of global affairs. The reality is, China and Russia are probably about to get smoked via economic / unrestricted warfare because they keep playing with fire. This is similar to when people where all doom and gloom about the U.S. vs. Soviet Russia but what happened? Soviet Russia collapsed and the U.S. economy went on a F'ing tear. Why do government and military officials act like it's such a dire situation? It's to avoid complacency. The reality is, the U.S. is so much more powerful than people realize. Just look at how quickly they assembled Western powers to wage economic warfare against Russia. This war isn't not going well for Russia, even if they do manage to take over Ukraine. China's economy is already in a vulnerable position but now, they're going to have to get weighed down by helping Russia, too? Yeah, it's not looking good for either of them, whereas the U.S. will likely quickly recovery after this institutional shift. The reality is, we are in for a bumpy road but most likely, Western nations will come out on top yet again.

P.S. Congratulations. You managed to get a LONG time lurker to post something. That's how strongly I feel about this subject. XD Anyway, back to lurking for another couple years.

I told my friend a long time ago that Dogecoin would not work out. He was buying into the hype at the time and refused to understand that most serious investors won't risk their money on a silly meme based alt-coin, nor will serious developers or even the dark web markets. This is people's lives and reputations at stake, so most are not going to risk making their life's work a joke on top of a joke. That's just the reality of the situation. Dogecoin will definitely fail. That's just my straight forward take on it. Maybe I'm wrong.

I do feel fortunate to be ahead of the game. The majority of people still have no clue what Bitcoin is.

I've never understood the opposition to a global government. It always seems to come from conspiracy theorists that lack critical thinking skills. What are we suppose to do? Never become united? Remain separate entities constantly vying and warring for territory and power? Does that really sound like the intelligent thing to do?

The majority of documentaries are full of speculation and disinformation, so I don't enjoy them as much as I had as a teenager. It's especially bad when it comes to conspiracy documentaries. Let me guess, blame the Freemasons and the incredibly vague "New World Order." You've really got to shift through the dirt to find an objective documentary with real substance.

Halo 2, Quake Live, and now Hearthstone.