[ocschwar]

That in turn boils down to a reluctance people have to acknowledging the magnitude of an externality of they are the ones imposing it on others, or even its existence.

It's particularly severe when it's up to an MBA running a company, but an engineering education only goes so far in mitigating that tendency: the Koch brothers majored in chemical engineering at MIT. A major component of their education was all about externalities. And yet they've devoted their political activism to nurturing anti-intellectualism in the Republican party specifically so that the GOP would deny any and all externalities.