Plunket on conspiracy theorists

Sean Plunket writes about the complaint to the Press Council (which I blogged about) that he and the Dom Post has to respond to, alleging the moon landings were fake. He notes:

Those who claim the 9/11 attacks were a neo-conservative plot to wrest control of the world’s oil supplies, that no plane ever crashed into the Pentagon and that the Twin Towers were brought down by controlled explosions are (in my honestly held opinion) at risk of being described as nutters.

They are the sort of people who believe fluoride in water is a global conspiracy when it’s actually designed to reduce tooth decay; that the Freemasons are an ancient order seeking global domination when they are actually secular apolitical community clubs like Rotary and Lions; that energy and car companies are deliberately hiding the existence of alternative engine technologies, when they are actually spending millions to develop them; and that our entire society is based on some intricate web of global conspiracy when it is actually just as chaotic, unpredictable and random as it has ever been.

Most conspiracy theorists I know (and I stress I have not met the Moon-landing complainant and so cannot speak to his motivations) are fundamentally unhappy people, often quite intelligent, for whom life has not worked out as they might have hoped.

I think this is very true. Both truthers and birthers for example are very unhappy people, in my observation. Yes, even Donald Trump.