The deniers are essentially uneducated and of low intelligence. They enjoy the conspiracy groups because it makes them feel part of something. And in reality they are an irritation but of no real danger.
The danger is not the deniers, it is those behind the deniers. Those that have placed themselves within the conspiracy group and promote the conspiracy as a way of keeping their minions in line and then manipulating them for their own motivations.
Those people, unpleasant though they are, are far less stupid, often educated and well aware of reality and what they are doing with it and are experts in manipulation.
Not so different to priests within the church in the Middle Ages and for very similar reasons. Also very similar to cult leaders of the last 50 years.
Attacking their minions who merely regurgitate whatever they are fed, though I confess I do it all the time, is merely a matter of emotional stress relief and will never achieve anything. They do not have the wit to understand your arguments. If they did they wouldn't be dumb enough to fall for the conspiracy theory in the first place. They are believing something that they very much want to believe, and they want to be part of the group that believes it. It matters not whether what they believe is ridiculous or not, they follow blindly without the need to question.
The unbearable irony being that if you disagree with a minion, then they regard you as a mug, a sheep or a victim for believing someone else. They do not accept the idea that you have worked out what to believe all by yourself without blindly following someone, through your own thoughts, reasoning and learnings because that is an approach that not only they are not capable of, it does not even occur to them as a possibility.
It is those behind the minions that we really need to worry about. And identifying them would be a good start.
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