[version_five]

Maybe I'm reading too much into it - whether by design or not, their public statements are serving them very well. They have a strong following (no doubt here, and on LinkedIn all the time I see people "liking" the pap they post), so they are playing to their base.

Second, if your enemy had a choleric temper, antagonize him. The people most sensitive to their stuff (eat bugs, personal carbon budget, whatever insane crap) get bent out of shape, and are still on the fringes enough that they look like the ones who are "conspiracy theorists" (they often are) and make it easy to dismiss criticism as crazy, while out in the open they do their thing.

Like I said, it's probably not intentional, but there is no countervailing force to prevent them from pushing their stuff, and plenty of upside, so they keep doing it.