> The term "conspiracy theory" is stop-think. The government only has to use the label in order to discredit a claim of wrong-doing. I don't think so. The gove

> The term "conspiracy theory" is stop-think. The government only has to use the label in order to discredit a claim of wrong-doing. I don't think so. The government calling something a conspiracy theory does not discredit a theory automatically – in fact it could lead to the polar opposite. If your theory is legit and other people can check it objectively a government calling it a conspiracy theory likely leads to more eyeballs checking that thing and if it is not someones anti-government-fan-fiction it might gain traction. The best move a government can make when someone has a legit conspiracy theory that has some factual basis is don't make any public statements about it. Conspiracy narratives (the word theory should be reserved for things that can be actually replicated) are good when the government wants to muddy the waters, but to do so they don't have to call things a conspiracy theory, they just have to sow the right seeds and let the right people disocover it. That being said, when I hear conspiracy theory, I typically think about people who have a believe, ignore objective facts that don't fit said believe and cherrypick "evidence" that does. And half of those people don't believe this themselves, they are in it for the greater fool. It isn't called a conspiracy theory, because it is a theory about a conspiracy, it is called a conspiracy theory, because every fact speaking against it can be explained by a big enough conspiracy. That doesn't mean there are no real conspiracies and actual historic, scientific and/or journalistic ways of pinning those down. It just means that what we commonly call "conspiracy theorists" aren't good at not lying to themselves (something good journalists, historians and scientists are good at).