The more I learn, and the more versed I become with society, the harder and harder it becomes to see what is "good" and what is "bad".

The most confident I ever was that I was "obviously correct" was when I was 20.

> Unfortunately, both low education for the general public and low quality of the public discourse exist by design.

Absolutely. Bread and circuses isn't a new idea.

>The only possible way to remedy this is to maximize your own ability to exert power, possibly by becoming massively rich, and then hope it doesn't corrupt you enough along the way such that you can still enact good in the end.

Points for the doing good in the end. But it's a rule in hell/serve in heaven issue, if you first need to create hell with your quest for power you have failed the objective of doing good in the end.