How Deep Does the Rabbit Hole Go?

I’ve been writing hardware reviews for almost a decade, and FiringSquad itself has been around for 7 years. In that time, I’ve seen writers come and go, and companies rise and fall … and rise again. What has always been constant is our readers’ ravenous appetite for knowledge and their desire for the subjective opinion and objective data to help make informed purchases. I’ve always told people that readers only see 1% of our efforts -- the other 99% of the article was the research. While we try our best to meet your appetite for knowledge, we know that FiringSquad alone isn’t enough, which is why our product database offers links to other high-quality reviews.

The question is why. Should we even be doing this?

No, I don’t mean the question of whether or not we should share links to the community. I’m asking: why are we all trying so hard to get to the truth? Children in grade school can give you the quote “ignorance is bliss” but we can actually understand why that’s true. Imagine if you didn’t know what you do about technology. You would go to Best Buy and get the graphics card with the coolest box, and when you discovered that the 32-bit PCI graphics card you just bought only runs Half Life 2 at 10 fps at 640x480, you wouldn’t get pissed, but would just assume that choppiness was the state of PC gaming. You would be beaming after buying “professional” speakers from two guys in a white van, and you would actually be excited about getting a Dell. Imagine if there was no Internet and no review magazines. You’d be happy just because you didn’t know any better.

Like Neo in the original Matrix film, we are all given the choice between taking the red pill or the blue pill -- the choice between learning the truth and facing the consequences of that knowledge or choosing to continue with our lives as we have been, finding comfort in believing whatever we want to believe.

I’m going to make you an offer. If you choose to you continue on, I will show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes. I can’t guarantee that you’ll like what you read. Some of you may not even want to believe me or will even try to downplay its significance. All I can offer you is the truth. What you choose to do with it is up to you.

If you choose to quit now and stop reading, that’s OK. You’re not going to die. I’m not going to reveal any life-altering truths. You’ll be happy and return to the life you had before you encountered this article. You may even end up spending less money. Lao Tzu once wrote: “To know that you do not know is strength. Not knowing that you do not know is sickness. The sage is sick of being sick, therefore he is well.” As long as you know that this article will be here for you when you’re ready, that’s OK with me.

So what your decision?