There is a certain... willful blindness... that you can easily see also in socialists today. Not sure I can describe it well in a short comment, but it's a prin

There is a certain... willful blindness... that you can easily see also in socialists today. Not sure I can describe it well in a short comment, but it's a principled unwillingness or inability to distinguish between good intentions and good outcomes. (To keep this simple, let's ignore the question whether the intentions really qualify as good; just suppose they do.) It's as if good intentions automatically lead to good strategies that automatically lead to good outcomes. Therefore, if you start a revolution with pure heart, a perfect future is guaranteed. And if it does not happen, it is only because someone with bad intentions prevented it -- you need to find the asshole and execute him, before he can cause more harm. There is no such thing as legitimate criticism. You can't say e.g. "hey guys, I agree with your goal of feeding more people, but your methods are based on pseudoscience and are not going to work; how about trying some actual science instead?". What they hear is "he opposes our attempts to feed the people, he must want them to starve, what an asshole"; and if they have the power, that might mean prison time for you. It is extremely frustrating to debate with a person who believes that if you don't 100% agree with them about something, the only possible explanation is that you are the bad guy who wants bad things to happen. But it becomes much worse when such person has the power to send you and your entire family to a death camp.