Ignorance: Our Heart of Darkness (revised and reposted)

Ignorance is still a problem despite the fact that information is more available than ever before Though we live in the Internet Age, ignorance of concepts important to understanding the way that diseases, governments, cultures, financial systems, and natural occurrences work still a big barrier to human improvement. Ignorance comes from two sources: lack of access to truthful and comprehensive information and willful lack of acknowledgment of available information. The former is a large problem in developing nations where Internet and schooling are either sub par or unavailable.
Though the willfully obtuse variety of ignorance can crop up anywhere, it is more obvious for what it is in developed nations where people are better educated and have access to opinions and data, yet still choose to believe what is easy and comfortable though it may be at odds with what is factual. For example, people in developing nations may not have opportunity to learn about how viruses are spread and prevented from spreading, so they may not see the benefit of vaccination. In America, where information is plentiful, there are people who choose to believe that the disease model of illness is false and do not see the benefit of vaccination. Both are ignorance, but the first is a natural consequence of under-education while the last is a matter of choice.