While ignorance is an evil thing and this Message Board’s main purpose is to fight it, the problem is that according to a lot of people here, I have a lot of it.
If you know Anonymous User even the slightest bit, you are probably aware of my ignorance in almost any thread I post in.
How do I not be so ignorant?
I really don’t want to be ignorant. I am a Socrates fanboy and as he said, “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
Simple. Talk less and listen more. When you think you have something to say, think about it and don’t say it. If you do say something, then listen to all points for and against and then don’t say anything.
By following this process, I tend to lurk more than I probably should, but I do benefit from only being called ignorant from myself 
I’m a newcomer here, but it seems to me the local translation of ignorant is - “you don’t agree with me.”
Therefore, it follows that you are not so much ignorant as disagreeable and contentious.
Is that better?
What **FordPrefect said. Also, it might be a good idea to remember this quote whenever you feel the need to jump in and post in a thread:
**
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
Anonymous User, in your case, you are young, and some level of ignorance is normal. Simply realizing that you are ignorant and desiring to learn is a pretty good start. All of us are ignorant in some respect, and the best we can do is to continue to broaden our knowledge. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing things, so long as you’re willing to learn.
Coming to this forum to lessen ignorance is like going skinny dipping to get dry.
Read, read, read, read, read, and then when you are done reading read some more.
From a message board context, seek to understand rather than argue. If someone disagrees with you, try to understand why. Ask questions rather than posting rebuttals.
Yes!
Including my lurking time before signing up, I’ve been reading the Dope since I was 13. I was on Snopes before that. Most of my net time is spent reading, as opposed to watching Youtube or listening to Spotify. Ignorance is cured by learning.
I agree with this 100%, and I would add: Read everything. Read books, magazines, fiction, nonfiction, newspapers (if you can find them), labels, advertisements, the sides of buses.
So everyone but me is assuming the OP was not satire?
Here’s a good definiton of ignorance: “lack of knowledge, education, or awareness.”
So how does one acquire knowledge, education, and/or awareness? Schooling, life experience, reading, doing activities – the knowledge accumulates over time.
Three key things I’ll mention:
Arguably the worst form of ignorance is not realizing the limits of what you know. Those who think they know it all tend to remain ignorant. That you recognize your own ignorance bodes well for your increasing your knowledge and thus decreasing your ignorance.
A healthy skepticism about things you hear and read can help a lot. Consider the source, and consult multiple sources. Someone who hears, say, Rush Limbaugh talking about politics or Jenny McCarthy talking about vaccines and takes it to be true without seeking more information on the topic is likely to remain woefully ignorant. Alternatively, if you find that, say, 8 out of 10 reasonably diverse sources agree on a given point, then it’s likely to be correct.
We are all ignorant, but to different degrees on different things. For example, I know quite a lot about auto repair (my field for 40 years), a fair amount about music theory (but certainly with a lot to learn), and essentially nothing about computer coding. Someone else may be a wizard at computer coding but at a total loss on fixing cars. No one can know everything, but the more one knows in general (including what one doesn’t know), the better one is equipped to deal with life.
My understanding is that Anonymous User is on the young side, and thus not likely to be as knowledgeable, in general, as old farts like me. Participating on the Straight Dope suggests a thirst for knowledge and exposes one to being made aware of one’s ignorance, so I found the OP plausible and took it at face value.
I do not. But on skimming through some of your old posts, I see you are 15 and have not yet held a job or been in a serious relationhip. So clearly your youth and inexperience means you lack knowledge on a lot of subjects. So the good news is you will eventually become “less ignorant” naturally simply by just getting older and experiencing stuff.
There is a difference between being ignorant and sounding or acting ignorant. Most people have a large number of topics of which they do not have significant knowledge. That does not seem to stop them from having strong opinions on the matter.
There are two pillars of fighting your own ignorance:
A key corollary to this is, don’t spend the time the other person is talking working on your own story or rebuttal. It’s a bad habit that prevents you from absorbing what they’re saying (and jumping in with your own babble may deter the other party from continuing).
And when you do talk, ask questions and listen to the replies.
This. In particular, it can be useful to read different authors on the same subject. People often ask, “How can we know history is real? How can we trust a given historian?” My answer is, you can’t – if all you read is that one book. But by reading multiple authors on the same subject, you will be able to leverage a sort of power of “natural selection” of opinion, and benefit from a wider range of viewpoints and strengths and weaknesses than any single author can possess. Eventually you’ll be fairly informed and can form your own synthesis of the slightly differing accounts you’ve read. At that point, other people might differ with your interpretations, but you won’t be ignorant.
I’ve been a member of this board for almost as long as you’ve been alive, and I can’t recall one single day when I didn’t learn something new from someone here. If nothing else, this place will teach you how others think and why they think that way, and that is just about the most valuable thing anyone can learn.
I’d say there’s a third - if not a pillar, then perhaps a flying buttress or something - and it applies to the SDMB in particular:
Learn to recognise the topics where debate tends to rapidly spiral into angry, stupid shouting where all parties end up talking past each other and repeating their assertions in the form of ever-more inapt analogies, and claiming with greater and greater certainty that they know what their opponent really meant better than the opponent does himeself.
Circumcision and guns are two that spring to mind. When participating in highly emotive, highly-polarised topics, you can often find yourself pushed to occupy and defend a position more extreme than you ever intended.
I’m not saying to avoid such threads, but reading them only is often more enlightening than participating.
I would add resist holding forth on topics you have no actual life experience with, such as marriage, or sexual conduct etc. You are certainly entitled to an opinion, but don’t be surprised when others roll their eyes or call you on it.
Consider that when people tell you that you may feel differently when you have actual life experience with such things, that they are being open and honest with you. What a horrible world it would be if we believed the same at eighteen as we did at thirteen. Consider that when people are expressing this to you, it’s because they ARE trying to help you come across as less ignorant. When you refuse to credit these things, flat out, you come off as somewhat willfully ignorant. That is not well tolerated in these parts, I’m afraid it never will be.
You seem very smart, in that you know a lot. But less so when you simply don’t demonstrate any actual critical thinking.
If it makes you feel any better, I suspect you’re remarkably similar to the way many dopers were at your age. And that’s probably why many find it irritating or hard to tolerate. They see themselves at that age, and it burns!
Prepare yourself for a lifetime of ignorance, not matter what your degrees or accomplishments, there are still things about which we are all ignorant!
Also mangetouts advice is extremely sage like, and you’re not the only one who could use such direction, I assure you!
And movie theater seating etiquette.