If we had only known......


People do stupid things, even if they know that they are stupid things to do; it's a kind of predestination.

The more educated, might be less likely to make mistakes, but are also likely to get cocky overestimate their competency. If information gives us an increased ability to "predict" the future, then we use our more accurate knowledge (or decreased level of risk) to make riskier choices, like the Peltzmann effect. Maybe the stock market is a picture of real life....

I would tend to say that more knowledge is an improvement, but not when people start to think that their models (whether they be economic, cosmological or psychological) actually exist, rather than being useful approximations of reality. It becomes ludicrous, people start with nativism vs. behaviorism type wars and when things cool down you get the people in the middle of the two camps and the only thing that they have right is that they believe that the first two camps were wrong.

Maybe we make poor choices because we don't have enough information? Do people like doing stupid things or are we just wired that way?
Maybe it initially requires "too much" effort to anticipate your making mistakes and minimizing the damage caused by them.....