Sounds familiar to many of us FOMO (from the English Fear Of Missing Out, «fear of missing something») and that have now become more fashionable than ever with social networks and investments in cryptocurrencies. At the diametrically opposite point of FOMO, however, is the FLABBY (Fear of Finding Out) or fear of finding out the truth.

A term used, among other things, in the medical community to describe the psychological barrier that prevents people from seeking medical advice for concerning health conditions (ironically, FOFO sufferers tend to encourage others to seek medical advice).

According to a study by Barclays, more than a third (37%) of millennials suffered from FOFO in their finances and did not like to check their bank accounts. It is still the trick of not opening a notification from the Treasury: “if I haven’t seen it, it doesn’t exist.” Something similar to the philosophical thought experiment attributed to the philosopher George Berkeley in his Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710): “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is near to hear it, does it make a noise?”

Suffering FOFO, naturally, is not good. Information is power, and without power, we lack control and freedom. FOFO is ignorance. However, various studies and approaches on how to ignore certain data suggest that not only does this ignorance make us happier and more operational, but it also leads to more efficient and harmonious societies.

THE RATIONAL AND NECESSARY FOFO

Ignorance is the antithesis of freedom, so no one is entitled to choose to be ignorant. You can’t choose not to know because by choosing not to know you are implicitly accepting that you already know what you don’t want to know. A contradiction like the one recounted by the famous Baron of Münchhausen, a fictional character popularized by the German writer and scientist Rudolf Erich Raspe in 1785, who was able to get out of a swamp where he had been trapped with his horse without more than pulling his own hair .

And yet, there are things that we would like to ignore, and to a certain extent we are capable of ignoring: it is enough to avoid knowledge or ask whoever has to inform us not to always tell us the truth. Like the spoiler that reveals the end of a movie or the result of a football match that we haven’t seen yet; as the placebo recipient in a double-blind drug study; like the kidnapper’s face; as the true opinion that people have about you; like the sex of your future child; as if your parents really have your same genes or not; like “he could tell you, but then he’d have to kill you”; Like the day you’re going to die.

Some scholars, paradoxically, have opted for these and other examples of selective ignorance. A unilateral disarmament of knowledge to avoid an escalation of knowledge that collapses reason. Ralph Waldo Emerson was even more succinct: “There are many things a wise man wishes he knew not.”

In canto XII of the Odyssey, the goddess Circe welcomes Odysseus and his men and warns them of the dangers on their next voyage, on the way to Ithaca, when they cross the Island of the Sirens:

«Pass without stopping after plugging the ears of your companions with soft wax, let not a single one hear them! You can only hear them if you want, but with your hands and feet tied and standing on the cockpit, have yourself tied to the mast to savor the pleasure of hearing their song.

Plugging your ears can be translated as avoiding receiving certain information. To tie yourself to the mast is to accept that we lack sufficient self-control, so we need external help..

LIBERTARIAN PATERNALISM

Ignorance and lack of self-control are the backbone of the so-called libertarian paternalism, a form of government based on decision architectures of our environments. That is, the environment encourages us to make good decisions in our lives, although we can also choose not to make them.

For this environment to work, a certain plot, certain information has to be hidden from us; it has to force us to be blissfully ignorant in some matters; siren songs should be avoided. In this sense, governments, aware of our lack of self-control, tie us to the mast, but with loose ropes instead of tight ones, as the legal expert Cass Sunstein and the behavioral economist Richart Thaler explain in their book Nudge (A little push).

Corollary: Sometimes what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker abounds in this in his book Rationality:

“Just as it is better to be rich than poor because, if you are rich, you can always give your money and be poor, we might believe that it is always better to know something, because you can always choose not to act on it. However, in one of the paradoxes of rationality, that turns out not to be true. Sometimes it’s really rational to plug your ears with wax.”

It is simply about avoiding a type of knowledge that would likely bias our cognitive faculties, for the same reason that juries are prohibited from attending to warrantless searches or forced confessions. Because the human mind is unable to ignore these rotten fruits. Just as the reviewers of scientific articles do, who remain anonymous to avoid any retaliation after a negative evaluation (just as the temptation to “repay a favor” to a generous evaluator is also avoided).

That is, we opt for ignorance to prevent our rational faculties from being exploited by rational adversaries:

“The driver of a Brinks armored truck is delighted that his ignorance is proclaimed on the sticker: ‘Driver does not know the combination to the safe,’ because a robber cannot credibly threaten him into revealing it.”

An extraordinary example in the field of technology is Google Maps. When we ask you for the fastest route to a destination, you will consistently avoid the most clogged roads. However, if all users end up taking less clogged paths, those paths will end up clogged just the same. Solution? Google Maps does not always tell the truth: it sends some users on the road less traveled, and others on the busier, so that both roads are balanced and everyone can arrive in a more reasonable time to their destination.

Rational ignorance, libertarian paternalism, the appropriate FOFO to live with others. Knowledge is freedom, true. But we are not always prepared to manage such a dose of freedom. the german chancellor Otto von Bismarckit was clear to him: «With laws it happens like with sausages: it is better not to see how they are made».