Conspiracy theorists - mental illness or stupidity?

[Notcontent]

I know people who believe if really crazy conspiracies have always been around, but this pandemic has really brought them out of the woodwork... I mean, how could you realistically believe that Covid-19 does not exist, or that the vaccines contain microchips??

Some people who believe those things might have a low IQ and/ or poor education and so lack any “critical thinking” skills - and so might not be able to see why this is really illogical. But what about people who are clearly reasonably intelligent and well educated - like Jeremy Corbyn’s brother. Is it almost like a mental illness? Do they become so obsessed with being anti-establishment that they lose the plot?

I have a friend who, in his teens through 30s never once showed any sign of being capable of thinking beyond his next pint and the next woman who didn't already know his reputation

He left school with few o levels or cses and his job, same since he left school, is manual, repetitive factory work.

In his 40s he suddenly started flat earthing and conspiracy theorist. If you talk to him it becomes very quickly evident that he is not simply repeating something he has read. He counters argument (aka plebian science) well, develops arguments, modifies points to meet any comments.

He sounds very well read, has a lot of internal coherence. The only issue is his starting point... the earth is flat etc.

I often wonder what he would have made of his life had his childhood been more supportive.

It's on and off really, he used to do a thing where he'd get annoyed if he deemed my comments irrelevant to his story or if I repeated stuff, he still has to remind me every time if I've repeated stuff more than once which I don't get. But I do tend to be quite sensitive and take stuff the wrong way.

Wrong thread sorry !