There is no conflict of goals, languages offer certain features, some of them offer only "zero-cost" abstractions (C++ and Rust) and others offer more abstracti

There is no conflict of goals, languages offer certain features, some of them offer only "zero-cost" abstractions (C++ and Rust) and others offer more abstractions. You get what you pay for in terms of runtime executable speed / features trade-offs. The other factor is the compiler toolchain - see below. If Rust had the same features as most LISPs have, then using these features would make Rust programs as "slow" as LISP programs. That is generally true for most programming language comparisons. What also matters for final executable speed is the toolchain, of course. Any languages that compile directly using GCC or LLVM and allows for compile-time typing will be roughly in the same ballpark. If they use their own compiler, such as Chez or Racket, then they usually don't match the performance, because there is not enough manpower in their teams to implement all those nifty optimizations GCC and LLVM have. SBCL is probably the fastest LISP with its own compiler. (Or Allegro?) To give an example, here are some CommonLisp features that Rust lacks: Full object system with inheritance and multiple dynamic dispatch, dynamic typing, hot runtime code reloading/recompilation, garbage collection.