I see two typical failure modes. Half of the time, they fall into a
> cannot separate the man from the idea
trap of “someone with a corrupted moral compass once believed this, ergo the idea itself is bad”, which doesn’t follow.
The other half does engage with the idea, but seemingly only ever half of it. They tend make the first step successfully,
> People can use a veneer of charity and rationality to ignore ethical issues
Which is definitely true, but don’t seem to actually take on the ideas purported main thrust, that “if one intends to give charitably, one ought to bias their choices towards causes that give money as effectively as possible at meeting your goals”, which frankly seems pretty air-tight
I think the core is that a lot of people have a problem with admitting someone they dislike had a pretty sensible idea.