A trend in human behavior that I have noticed is paternalism. Obviously parents are the most obvious example of paternalism, but even governments and social groups engage in this. In some contexts it makes sense to override someone’s autonomy such as if they desire to harm others or engage in conduct that is detrimental to human life or the environment. However, many political and religious groups attempt to stop people from doing other things such as religious practice, sex work, or even dating or ideological reasons. Why did people end up in such a mess? How many people fall into patterns of exercising excessive control over their loved ones? Even doctors are known for paternalistic attitudes and disregarding the wishes of the people seeking care.
When a person is making decisions that are not best for themselves, there may be some reasons why, such as misunderstanding of reality, fear of action, instant gratification, etc. The logical thing to do is to just tell them why their decision would be bad, but in reality this manifests as paternalistic programs related to drugs in school that greatly exaggerate the realities of drug usage and their side effects, with focus entirely on the worse ones to create a mental fear of anything while not going into nuances. They obviously don’t trust their people to make decisions enough to give them a non-biased education, and this backfires because people are not unable to see what the establishment is attempting to do. By exaggerating or withholding information that would influence a person’s decision on something, you make it seem as if your preferred decision needs manipulation in order for other people to choose it. This is a big reason why anti-socialist propaganda is losing its effect as well.
I am not a libertarian in any way, but if we give the people everything they need to survive and we educate them as to why certain things are bad, they have the knowledge they need to choose their fate. There is a desire to try and make people do what is best for themselves, but this becomes paternalism once it limits their personal autonomy.