The problem I usually have with conspiracy theories is that typically they're not pitched as "what-if" scenarios for people to keep in the backs of their minds

The problem I usually have with conspiracy theories is that typically they're not pitched as "what-if" scenarios for people to keep in the backs of their minds as remote possibilities. Typically they're pitched as things that people have absolute faith in because it allows them to give in to their worst fears and biases in the absence of evidence. For a lot of people, conspiracy theories are the thing that lets them not just believe in their own personal boogeymen, but (in their view) can give them a moral obligation to go around making other people believe in their boogeymen as well. For example, 9-11 truthers generally don't just present a handful of odd facts and say "that's odd, I wonder if there's something more going on here". No, they will present a handful (at best) of odd facts and tell you that they are 100% certain about what really happened. They're not saying that the handful of odd facts supporting their argument is proof, rather they're saying that unless you can disprove their (unknowable and likely undebunkable) handful of odd facts, that they must be 100% correct about everything. There are a lot of parallels with religion, and IMO some of the same cognitive processes are at work. Those sorts of conspiracy theorists aren't offering offbeat counterarguments to prevailing views- those sorts of conspiracy theorists are willfully injecting noise and superstition into the "humanity computer" (or the zeitgeist, or the collective unconscious, or civilization's ongoing internal monologue, or however we choose to think of it). That's my main issue with conspiracy theories (and a lot of religion, and a lot of political discourse...).