when your entire social circle is dedicated to deluding themselves into thinking they're fighting the good fight(tm) on internet message boards and they purposefully remove any and all outside influence that could even suggest theyre wrong, it makes sense that it would continue escalating to the point of complete delusion and paranoia
a lot of it stems from the fact that many moons ago the message board they participated on was well known and visited frequently by developers (spoilers: a lot of message boards are, just not as publicly) they gained this sense of self importance in thinking they had a direct hand in shaping the industry
add 10 or so years of this self importance along with slowly insulating themselves to any and all contrary opinions, and demonizing anyone who even hints at being out of line, and you end up with what you have now, a forum of people so detached from reality that absurd statements taken to the point of being parody are seen as wisdom good ideas
it unironically reminds me of a few friends I had in highschool who got bullied in jr. high so they eventually insulated themselves to the outside world and kept reinforcing their own beliefs while escalating how injust everything else was to the point of them cutting contact with everyone (me incl) and they ended reaching some freaky murder cult levels and shit
one of them went to jail for trying to kill this old lady who managed a local gas station bc they had convinced themselves she was the ring leader of this big conspiracy to stop them specifically or some shit, & im seeing a lot of parallels here