I am not that excited about elucidating what “movements with high ideals” achieved. Most ”high ideals” are dumb.
Fair point, although I think that can also be hard to determine prior to knowing what will actually work in the real world. One reason I chose early communism as a counterexample is that as Scott Alexander’s pointed out (eg here), quite a lot of smart, thoughtful people took communism seriously at that time, and were reasonable to do so.
Fair point, although I think that can also be hard to determine prior to knowing what will actually work in the real world. One reason I chose early communism as a counterexample is that as Scott Alexander’s pointed out (eg here), quite a lot of smart, thoughtful people took communism seriously at that time, and were reasonable to do so.