Accusations of government malfeasance are in a completely different class of claim than 'the earth is flat'. The fact that you even compare them at all is part

Accusations of government malfeasance are in a completely different class of claim than 'the earth is flat'. The fact that you even compare them at all is part of the problem. You shouldn't be evaluating claims purely based off the offered evidence. You need to also factor in the plausibility of the claim. If I say a cop punched me but I have no proof, that claim should be considered plausible. If I say a space alien abducted me, that should fail the plausibility test. In either case there is zero evidence, but that doesn't mean you should judge these claims to be equally dubious. Doing so isn't rational. P(A|B) = P(B|A) * P(A) / P(B) P(Claim|No Evidence) = P(No Evidence|Claim) * P(Claim) / P(No Evidence) P(Claim) for government malfeasance is very high, but very low for flat earth. P(No Evidence|Claim) is fairly high for government malfeasance, but virtually zero for flat eartherism. These aren't remotely comparable claims.