An argument against a conspiracy theory is probabilistic, because we don’t deny that conspiracies exist, only that in this specific case, a non-conspiracy explanation is more probable than a conspiracy explanation, therefore focusing on the conspiracy explanation is privileging a hypothesis.
People are not very good at probabilistic reasoning. So some of them prefer an interesting story. And others try to reverse stupidity by making fully general counterarguments against conspiracies.
The situation is further complicated by not having a precise definition of what conspiracy is. Does it require mutual verbal agreement, or does a silent cooperation on Prisonner’ Dilemma also count as a conspiracy? (Two duopolistic producers decide to avoid lowering their product prices, without ever speaking with each other.) Somewhere between this is a cooperation organized by people who avoid to speak about the topic directly. (Each of the duopolistic producers publishes a press article “we try to provide the best quality, because making cheap junk would be bad for our customers”.) Actually, the players can even deceive themselves that they are really following a different goal, and the resulting cooperation is just a side effect.
Related: Reversed stupidity is not intelligence; Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People.
An argument against a conspiracy theory is probabilistic, because we don’t deny that conspiracies exist, only that in this specific case, a non-conspiracy explanation is more probable than a conspiracy explanation, therefore focusing on the conspiracy explanation is privileging a hypothesis.
People are not very good at probabilistic reasoning. So some of them prefer an interesting story. And others try to reverse stupidity by making fully general counterarguments against conspiracies.
The situation is further complicated by not having a precise definition of what conspiracy is. Does it require mutual verbal agreement, or does a silent cooperation on Prisonner’ Dilemma also count as a conspiracy? (Two duopolistic producers decide to avoid lowering their product prices, without ever speaking with each other.) Somewhere between this is a cooperation organized by people who avoid to speak about the topic directly. (Each of the duopolistic producers publishes a press article “we try to provide the best quality, because making cheap junk would be bad for our customers”.) Actually, the players can even deceive themselves that they are really following a different goal, and the resulting cooperation is just a side effect.