There is one core reason that Machiavellianism is naive. It's because the grand long-term ends people seek to create with all of their sinister deeds in the short-run rarely ever comes to pass. Yet all those sinister deeds absolutely do come to pass and are what we all get to live through.

So the most well intentioned person doing awful things? In my mind he's an awful person. But this also goes the other way as well. Imagine you're right, and the idea of getting humans into space is some elaborate scheme to somehow get more leverage over humanity. Awesome! Because it's highly unlikely such schemes will come to pass in any sort of remotely realistic way, but we'll be left with the means of humans actually meaningfully expanding into space.

I'd love to see as sharp increase in the number of evil people plotting to do good things to further their evil ends. All the 'good' people doing evil deeds in the name of some grand end that never happens is quite tiresome.