Ignorance and stupidity are not synonymous. Both are impossible to be objectively defined and quantified.  While stupidity may breed ignorance, ignorance does not necessarily breed stupidity.

Put simply: You don’t know what you don’t know. But once you do know, you are responsible for this.

What does this all mean? It means that it is unfair for someone to be labeled as stupid when they might actually be ignorant. Stupid is being well aware of the facts behind your actions, and the pain or hurt it can cause someone else and/or yourself, and choosing to do so anyway. Stupid is repeating an action that has a proven history of having a certain outcome, possibly involving hurting yourself or others, despite knowing better.

Ignorance is not having particular skills or knowledge. Like stupidity, hurting oneself or others as a result of this schematic gap, can occur. However there is no ill intention when ignorance is in action. Ignorance is not having the facts because the facts were never deposited – as opposed to having the facts there but ignoring them or disregarding them. Opportunities and experience replace ignorance with knowledge and skill.   

I once put transmission fluid in the wrong depository under the hood. The result of my action was quite costly. Was it stupid or ignorant of me? Does this not depend on the history and experiences that came before this moment? 

The distinction between ignorance and stupidity is perhaps at the core of some of our biggest debates as a society, yet is very elusive when it comes to pinning down a solid, mutually agreed upon definition of the two. Much more pertinent to humanity are deciding if a certain outcome should be labeled as a “good” one or “bad” one.

If I intend to collect as much money in my lifetime as I can and am willing to hurt, or even kill another human being, am I ignorant or stupid? Would I not be operating on my specific reality, my experience and my knowledge base to decide my actions from there? What if my experiences somehow lead me to, directly or indirectly, hurt another, but having been socialized in specific ways, I decide that the gain in wealth is “good”, so the outcome is thus good? In other words, killing leads to good things. Is absence of what we call consciousness or guilt, just ignorance? Or just stupid?