alt Hacker News> To him, the entire code base might as well be unsafe.
Not at all. I would very much like the code to be safe, it's just that I reach for a low level language to get the thing that low-level languages are designed to offer me, which is control, and no language offers control and safety at the same time. So when the interesting parts of the code could be written in safe Rust, I have to give up control, and in that case I'd rather use a more convenient language that doesn't give me full control. And when the interesting parts of the code need full control, Rust doesn't give me safety anyway, and I still pay for its complexity. As to encapsulating unsafe, that doesn't help at all if the most tricky parts of the code are inside. What happens there is that Rust makes the hard parts harder and the easy parts easier, and for me that's a net negative.
P.S.
And that brings me back to the universality point, that you're actually repeating, so let me explain it again. All programming languages bring a certain aesthetic that appeals to some and repels others within their intended domain. For example, I prefer Java to C# and Kotlin because I place a value on language simplicity, but I'm well aware that some other people like a lot of convenience features and they have the opposite preferences. I don't expect everyone to like Java even among those who work in the domains in which it is intended. For the same reason, I prefer Haskell over Scala and Clojure to Common Lisp, yet I fully recognise there are those who have the opposite preference.
Yet when people say they don't like Rust, the reaction among those who do is often one of: you don't want it to work, you don't care about correctness, your situation is special, or you just don't get it. I.e. they expect Rust to be universally liked unless there's a some good exceptional reason not to. But this is not the case for any language, let alone a language as complicated and as rich as Rust, which is certain to evoke a strong aesthetic reaction either for or against. So I have a long, long record of working with low level languages, I have a long record of working with formal methods and studying software correctness in general, I've worked extensively on safety-critical and mission critical systems, and I find Rust unappealing. There is nothing that should be surprising about that, there is nothing special about Rust or any other language that should lead anyone to expect it to be universally liked among those in the domains for which it is intended, and indeed, it is not the case for Rust as it is not the case for any other language. This amazement that quite a few people, even those with the relevant expertise, don't like your favourite language is exactly this sense of universality that I find annoying.
That some people get it yet don't want to choose a language is the case for Java, it's the case for Haskell, it's the case for Zig, and it's the case for Rust. Some people who really care about writing correct low-level code will have good reasons to choose Rust over other languages, while others who really care about writing correct low-level code will have equally good reasons to choose other languages over Rust. It's not because our programs are special, but it's because we think we can do it better with other languages. That's just the reality of all programming languages ever made, and that's what I mean by no universality. There is no external, objective requirement for any program that makes any (general purpose) language objectively best for that program. Choices always involve some kind of personal aesthetic preference.
That your favourite language isn't "objectively best" and isn't universally preferred even among those who care about the things you care about isn't something that should bother you, and pointing out this simple fact isn't trolling. It's something you should expect, because it's always true.