Yeah, I mean, that I expected. What I wasn't expecting, and still cannot wrap my head around, is how thoroughly ingrained the cultural avoidance is to learning

Yeah, I mean, that I expected. What I wasn't expecting, and still cannot wrap my head around, is how thoroughly ingrained the cultural avoidance is to learning about anything in that intellectual space. I would have expected that upon hearing about such a program, both the thoughts "This might be good" and "This might be bad" would occur to a person, and both be potentially investigated, even if only quietly and internally. But instead, it seems as if any intellectual space that could be considered even slightly controversial is often avoided by reflex, far before you get the chance to have the "this might be good or this might be bad" thought. I was going to give an anonymized example of the above, but out of respect for the person have chosen not to do so in such a public forum.