Same here, although I begin to question their rationality / criticality / logic. One in particular is an engineer who's worked on and even managed some of the biggest projects in my country, although I've come to realize most of that is connections and charisma. It's interesting too because a lot of his "brightness" is sounding smart, but rather it's just a colorful intuition heuristic that he bases most of his thinking on, with major deficits in control of his own life and thoughts.

But yes, it's an rather strange combo to tackle. First you have the fear, the anxiety, the paranoia, a vulnerability of sorts to these ideologies, which is followed by some form of ego defense which tries to reinforce the topic from a perceived reasonable system. I think you can pinpoint the emotional basis too because they psychologically project; "Oh you are just scared of COVID, sheep" (the parallel is they are scared of the vaccine / something to do with the vaccine). The problem however is that you can't erode that foundation and expect everything else to collapse, they sort of shift their goalpost so that the further justification, the reinforcement of their view becomes the foundation of their ideology.

And then you have another complex set of events, the new harder to untangle goalpost is reinforced by fear, anxiety, paranoia as they begin to delve down the rabbit hole usually corroborated by some form of illiteracy, not knowing how to interpret studies or analytically filter information, but the real problem is the further paranoia / fear results in a rejection of the system which precedes the information the perceived opposition is creating, IE, science in general or the government. Therefore it's near impossible to install the literacy needed to begin tackling the goalpost view because they systematically reject the source or association of the literacy.

I'm going to actually maybe say something a little provocative, but I think the BASIS of this thinking is pathological. I think the BASIS is an already problematic belief system, the tinted glasses were already there. For a lot of men I know who hold these views, I think they characteristically fit the dismissive-avoidant attachment style category likely stemming back to cold and rigid parents, which has lead to a long life of striving to be very independent, a struggle to intimately relate to others well and a deep insecurity. I think in part this suspicion of authority leans massively into their pathological presuppositions, but I also think it gives them some form of unified community which they likely have a longing for.