What I'm saying is that if someone shows they are completely unwilling to either look at the facts, or just don't care that their actions have such an outsized negative impact, what can I do? They are literally holding everyone else hostage because they don't want to change. That's not negotiation, and the only "policy" that will work for them is "whatever they want".

That said, I don't think this is how people are. I think people are living in a deep cognitive dissonance and refusing to see the facts, not acknowledging them and saying they don't care.

That's not a policy problem, that a problem of educating people that do not want to be educated. Should the rest of the populace just shift our views away from reality so people that don't want to face it can get a better deal out of some policy? That won't lead to an acceptable outcome either, when the policy in question is about public safety.