> I think if we actually cared about making a better world, you'd take steps where each successive step is a positive one.

Yeah, but lots of people don't care about that, they care about acheiving their visions of power, and they need an excuse to justify other people suffering for them. They aren’t seeking long term improvements at the cost of short term suffering, they are using a mirage of utopia over the hill to sell people a deal which is only suffering, now and for however long they can be kept in line.