I don't think it's ignorance. It's indifference. The vast majority of Americans simply don't give one iota of care as long as they are currently comfortable.

I don't remember the quote, but something about them only learning from catastrophe.

Sometimes- it also just rains. The end of WW2 and free trade + technology, have given the futurist ideology that every problem is solveable way to much credibility. Some problems are just hard and inherently not solveable and sometimes not even workaroundable by technology.

Utopists who run into accumulating problems, closing resource windows and simple limitations of humans (tribal creatures) and the meta-machinery they built, are bound to just run around with their pants on fire.

I would make a stronger claim: ignorance + power + conviction is exactly equal to evil.

Mao killed tens of million of his own people because of his misconceptions about farming, economics, and ecology.

Hitler killed millions because of his misconceptions about jews.

9/11 was executed becuase of a small group that were very confused about the basic facts of reality ("god").

There is only delusion + power + conviction. There is no other evil.