As far as I can recall, no further attacks were prevented. I disagree with calling it “pointless”, because it was the right decision given what was known at the time.
Not so much willful ignorance as backwards reasoning. They desperately want to believe the world is fair and they earned whatever success they’ve had in their lives, so they adopt beliefs that lead to those conclusions.
I struggled with it a lot in my 20s. If you’ve grown up with the idea that the world is basically a pretty decent place, it’s hard to accept how fucked up everything is, so there’s a natural tendency to try to explain away the things you learn about so you don’t have to confront the harsh reality directly.
You effectively can’t just talk to women on dating sites. Thanks to how matching works, you have to successfully sell yourself with pictures to get your profile read, and successfully sell yourself with words in the profile before you can actually talk with anyone.
Back before matching was a thing, it wasn’t much better. You could talk but you’d usually be ignored because the woman’s inbox would be filled with too much crap for her to go through it all.
They’re not supporting him because they’re worried about his finances. They’re supporting him because they have faith in his leadership. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t care. Lots of CEOs are just empty suits, but Altman clearly has been doing something his workers liked.