At work I deal with two people closer to Lumi's side of the spectrum. I became friends with them well before any of this behavior came about, so I try to tread somewhat lightly when calling them out on all the predictions that don't happen, and I try not to think entirely badly of them because they do have good qualities, it is just that out of nowhere we'll be talking about something entirely innocent and bam! a comment about how the government is trying to kill us will pop up or something.
Anyway, I have discovered that in at least their case, I believe it is entirely a matter of "I know something you don't know." They got reeled into one of those multi-level-marketing schemes too (not going to give them advertising), and it is almost exactly the same mindset as the conspiracy theories. It is like they are privy to some secret that the rest of us aren't, and they feel, I don't know, better or superior or informed. Something. I wouldn't classify them as dumb either, although they are firmly in the average intellect range, so it isn't like they are just too dumb to know they are being tricked. I genuinely believe it is attractive to them, for whatever reason, to be "smarter" than the rest of us in a particular area, whether it is 9-11 being a conspiracy or this stupid fucking cream making people look younger for hundreds of dollars a month.
I also deal with several others at work that believe everything from bigfoot to UFOs to ghosts. I feel their belief is driven by different motivations (including lower intelligence in some cases), so it seems like in my very limited example, only the true conspiracy believers suffer from this desire to have this extra knowledge. I'm sure it doesn't hold true for a lot of people, but it is what I've found at least.
The jimmy rustling over dealing with all of them has been posted a few times in the rustled thread, so I won't go into it here, but I've attempted to do my due diligence and at least figure out what makes them tick so maybe I can just let it all slide right off without having to try to talk some sense into them every time.
