I am not an expert on the psychology of conspiracism. But the answer to your first question is extremely complicated. Because there's the people who believe and the people who claim they believe for financial benefit, and Alex Jones has claimed to be both. But I honestly think it's an extension in a lot of ways of the same thinking that Tim Finch is showing. He has to be smarter than everyone else. You can tell from his writing that it's deeply important to him. Knowing something you don't know lets you feel smarter, and they don't tend to think through the ramifications of "the government silences people." Because somehow, they are brave and it means that the government won't silence them?
As for two, if you mean, the conspiracists . . . I honestly believe that a lot of them have a hard time believing that anyone but themselves is real. Or at least anyone but people they know personally and are close to. I've been told that everyone who works at JPL is an actor; I had a lengthy discussion with a friend from high school who works in their business office about why she didn't get invited to any of the good Oscar parties. Another friend has been on the news several times to talk about his son's measles from several years ago, and there are people on the internet who insist that friend, his wife, and his son are all actors hired by Big Pharma to make people vaccinate their children because crazy whatever. And, okay, I met my friend when he was playing Rooster in his junior high production of Annie, I grant you. But to some people, literally everyone they don't know personally might as well be an actor.
