> a clear financial incentive to misdirect. That doesn't exist in the nuclear debate.

It's very obviously not in the interests of "big fossile" to go either solar or nuclear.

>You're probably going to struggle to come up with a motive for that behaviour.

No, I'm not. Not in the slightest.

Number in top right go up. Monkey brain feel goooooood when that happen. Monkey brain keep doing behavior that make that happen.

> It is much more likely that they simply aren't very thoughtful.

They're plenty thoughtful. They'll contrive all sorts of arcane logic, plausibly deniable lies and witty turns of phrase (some of which are quite impressive).

What they're not is self aware (the dishonesty is a byproduct of that).

> Complex webs of deception

Those are possible but I don't think that's what's happening here.

> but it generally relies on some group having a clear financial incentive to misdirect.

Internet fanboys work for free. They have no financial incentive. Therefore we fall back to the monkey brain incentive.