I agree; one should educate oneself. That's why my advice was to "learn how and why" rather than to simply do it. The danger with the financial sector is that there is a ton of biased, bad advice out there. So you need to take some care and critically evaluate what you're learning. Having done that myself, I'm a strong believer in low-cost, diversified investing. (Which usually means passive indexes, but the important things are low cost and diversification; occasionally that's not incompatible with active funds.) For most people who don't want personal finance as a hobby, an hour should be enough time to learn why a simple portfolio of low-cost index funds is a solid choice, and then they can confidently stay the course, rather than trying to time the market or pick winners and ending up worse off for it, as many do.