Why not look at relatively more secular western Europe versus the relatively more religious US and see which population is more accepting of government regulations. That is to say that either you have it precisely backwards or there is no observable correlation.

That does not actually follow.

Upvoted for bringing my attention to this. I didn't feel so, but reading my response to the second comment I see how one can get that impression. I've edited that bit of the text while trying to keep its original meaning.

Does it come of any better?

Part of the reason I perhaps came off the wrong way might have been that I was mistaken thinking that not many people are geniuenly fooled by the rational and are aware of a ulterior motive that makes it awfully convenient to "help" that particular group of people, unless they also seek to ensure universal adherence to their values.

In which case I also thought was obvious to most that when they cheer for "spreading democracy" or things like that what is happening on a basic level is satisfaction of the urge to convert the infidels not a rational judgement based on a unbiased consideration of what is best for them.

If it was the first part of my post that bothered you, perhaps I should emphasise that I don't object to not caring what the locals think to a extent, I just object to not being honest to oneself about it. I also implicitly stated (small) that by the standards we apply to some other situations concerning government and violence, a occupying force cares a little bit less than one might first assume.

"Out of curiosity, do people who grow up under this sort of regime end up thinking it's normal, similarly to the way people raised in Christianity end up desensitized to the absurd-sounding nature of the beliefs about virgin birth and so on? Does it cause them to e.g. be more accepting of government regulation than average?"

Why not look at relatively more secular western Europe versus the relatively more religious US and see which population is more accepting of government regulations. That is to say that either you have it precisely backwards or there is no observable correlation.

I think your examples are terrible, and in part it's because they're political - but for a somewhat different reason than the one elaborated in Politics is the Mind-killer.

First, there's the mismatch between the problem you're addressing and the problem your examples illustrate. The problem you're addressing is how to make sure your behavior changes to match your updated beliefs. In this problem, your beliefs have already updated due to the weight of the evidence, but for some reason (and your list of plausible reasons is compelling) your habitual behavior fails to reflect this change in your beliefs. However, both your examples aren't about that at all - they're about beliefs not changing in the face of the evidence. Josh Stieber's fellow soldiers did not change their minds about whether they should be in Iraq. Your example actually appears to argue that they should have, if they behaved rationally - but whether or not it's true, there's no relevance to the problem your post addresses. At one point, you're doing a sleight of hand of sorts (unintentionally, I'm sure):

One of Josh's commanders wound up coming around to Josh's point of view to the extent of being able to agree to disagree and give Josh a hug, but still kept ordering people to kill the locals. One wonders: what would it take to get the commander to change not just his mind, but his actions?

But the commander didn't change his mind, not to the point that would necessitate changing his actions. He merely "agreed to disagree". So there's no one in the first example who's failing to update their behavior following an update to their beliefs.

With the second example it's even worse, because it's more vague. I'm not sure who here is supposed to have updated their actions but didn't - I think it's the international food donors, and, in particular, "well-intentioned leaders who have reason to know that their policies are counterproductive but who are unable or unwilling to change their behavior to reflect that knowledge". But the fact that their policies are counterproductive (granting that for the sake of the argument) is no evidence that they possess that knowledge, that they updated their beliefs accordingly. People do all kinds of counterproductive things all the time while maintaining their belief in their usefulness. To illustrate your problem, you need those food donors to have decided, under the weight of the evidence, that they're doing the wrong thing, yet to persist in doing it. I don't think you have anything like that in your example. Like the first one, it's primarily about people not updating their beliefs when they ought to, in the face of the evidence.

Now, as examples of people not changing their minds when the evidence is compelling, your two examples are terrible - primarily because they're political. And why this should be so is, I think, an interesting aside. It is not because using a political example tends to antagonize some of the readers needlessly - that by itself is true, and a good reason to avoid political examples while talking about rationality, but is only a minor factor here, to my mind. Much more important is this: the story of people failing to account for compelling evidence is by itself a familiar, ubiquitous, low-status specimen of political propaganda.

In fact, one of the most frequent arguments you encounter as you read political discussions is the argument that the other side are ignoring obvious facts, and so failing to behave rationally, because they're blinded by their ideology. To a first approximation, everyone believes that about everyone else. Take any well-divided political issue, and you'll find people on both sides building up detailed stories that show what it is exactly that ought to convince any reasonable person, but fails to convince their opponents due to their ideological bias. Such stories are almost always wrong. Typically they do one or several of: (i) exaggerate the evidence or misrepresent its degree of uncertainty; (ii) ignore conflicting evidence to the other direction; (iii) tacitly assume a host of underlying convictions that are only obvious to your side; (iv) ignore any number of ways the other side could find to explain your evidence without changing their beliefs, not all of them contrived.

Because of these problems, it's reasonable to treat the whole genre of political stories of the "they failed to think rationally" kind as low-status and corrupt. These stories are always preaching to the choir, and only to the choir. They should not, and typically do not, convince an independent rational observer, much less anyone from "the other side". (The only exception is when such a story explicitly includes an explanation as to how it manages to avoid (i)-(iv) above. When such an explanation is compelling, the story may be saved. I think that happens very rarely).

I refrain from pointing out how (i)-(iv) apply particularly in the case of your first and second examples, because I think compiling such a list is easy enough, and avoiding an explicitly political discussion is a virtue.