Jake, your ideas are interesting, but before I buy into them, it would be useful to see some empirical data. You say "But then we assume that when children become adults they somehow magically acquire the ability to successfully manage any amount of power that the knowledge explosion may deliver. The irrationality of this assumption is proven beyond doubt..."

I'm sure some people would doubt this, and to really prove to them you are right, it would be helpful to cite some studies that demonstrate how adults continue to have problems managing the amount of power they have. You may consider reading Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational. It looks at how human psychology often encourages irrational decisions in ways we don't often recognize. Some of his insights could be relevant to the argument you are making.

One final point: you use arguments by analogy several times in this post. This isn't bad, but it can be dangerous as there is a fallacy called "false analogy" that is easy to fall into if you're not careful. You might consider reading this post to learn about the fallacy and this article to learn how to avoid it.