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There is a lot of conspiratorial thinking going on on both sides of the ideological spectrum. I think this goes without saying on the right, but on the left, if you think about it, it's fairly conspiratorial to allege that the primary lens through which institutional structures and outcomes should be assessed is through deeply engrained prejudice. In other words, it's pretty conspiratorial to allege that all of society's existing structures and institutions are corrupted by the nebulous forces of systemic racism/sexism/etc. and it can easily be considered paranoia to claim that because I've experienced x adverse outcome it must necessarily be because of this nebulous force that's out to get me. With that said, I do think that such forms of prejudice exist to some extent in some cases, but because they are largely more conceptual and abstract it's very easy to tap them as the primary causal force, without having to provide any real evidence or reasoning.
And much of this thinking is cloaked by a supposed commitment to skepticism, which I think most people would agree is virtuous. But at a certain point skepticism just becomes conspiratorial thinking. It’s important to consider all ideas on their merit, but it’s also important to consider that not all ideas have equal merit, meaning we cannot always say that in the absence of incontrovertible truth we must adopt an agnostic position. I could very easily allege that the mods of this subreddit were paid by x nefarious organization to start this webpage, and because you can't come up with evidence to the contrary, maybe I'm right.
Conspiratorial thinking, at the outset, appears to have merit. But mechanically it is throwing every element of an event into question, which is hampered by a. Bounded rationality; we cannot possibly comprehend the interplay between all elements of a given phenomenon and b. The fact that we do not have all of the relevant information on all elements of a given thing.
I'll happily take the other side of that argument. Conspiratorial thinking is underrated, especially by people coming from the "citation needed" / "correlation is not causation" school of skepticism.
Anti-conspiratorial thinking relies on the assumption, that if there was a conspiracy, we'd see solid evidence of it. That assumption is unfounded. The hierarchical structure of most human organizations means access to information is not equally distributed, which allow any potential conspirator to operate undetected, or at the very least, with plausible deniability.
On top of that, even in cases where there is solid evidence, conspirators can play on preexisting social, and political conflicts, and use them for cover. "X can't be true, that's something the outgroup would say". Even now, even on this forum, you could probably trip that particular wire for a few people, just by factually describing a few aspects of the Rotheram Rape Gang case.
Another issue is a sort of mental block, that people who grew up in high-trust societies have. To paraphrese Hlynka from the other thread: sure, our government can be corrupt, but it's corrupt in benign ways. All those other countries might have subverted institutions, and public officials who look the other way, but not us! Even private corporations are shielded by this mentality in a perverse way. Rich Westerners consider themselves cynical when they believe the CEOs, and Wallstreet fatcats would sell their grandma for a dollar, but the idea they might do something shady for reasons that aren't profit related, is considered "conspiratorial".
Now, I'm not saying to blindly follow every conspiracy theory. A good conspiratorial thinker knows their limits. At the end of the day, all it is, is pointing at the smoke in the distance, and figuring there might be a fire. If you know enough about the surrounding area, you might guess what is burning, and how the fire started, or you might be wrong, and there might not be a fire at all.
All I'm saying is that conspiratorial thinking should not be dismissed.
Best answer to these "but someone would talk" debunking talking point is introduction into some actually existent historical conspiracies well documented by mainstream history, some of them very large and long lasting, that managed to stay secret and achieve their purpose.
Is it really so implausible, Mr. Skeptic, that important and influential secret conspiracies are active now, in this time and place?
Typical example is Greg Cochran. Very smart guy, but devoted old school flag - bald eagle - apple pie patriot with all blind spots you can expect. For someone like this, idea that his beloved Eagleland
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Eagleland
was infiltrated and controlled by blackmail is simply unacceptable.
See in this thread Cochran cavalierly (but uneasily) dismissing the whole Epstein thing with barrage of lame jokes (Evidence please. No, this is not evidence! Not this! Not this! Not this either!)
https://twitter.com/gcochran99/status/1548817244599099392
(of course, YMMV whether this hot take by the great basilisk man himself in this thread is better: "Pedophile mafia in control, trust the plan!")
https://twitter.com/RokoMijic/status/1547324263052595200
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