One risk of ignoring opposition criticism or the voice of the common people is What if they turn out to've been right all along? That may be behind the tragic story of the disappearing Aral Sea, when Russia chose cotton over fish and ignored local feedback.
Now "an area of water the size of Ireland" has been lost, and that's not the last of their problems...
Planting a forest on the Aral's dried-out seabed - BBC News