After a bit more thought, I suspect my comments are talking about different things than you intend. I suspect “conspiracy” is an unhelpful abstraction, and there is more in-category variance than would make it useful to talk about the mean or range of conspiracy claims.
Basically, there is no useful prior for the truth behind a conspiracy claim. The specifics always move the probability by a massive amount. For me, the specifics of true claims mostly move me off the term “conspiracy” into more specific accusations, but that’s a completely separate point that I don’t HAVE a baseline of credence.
After a bit more thought, I suspect my comments are talking about different things than you intend. I suspect “conspiracy” is an unhelpful abstraction, and there is more in-category variance than would make it useful to talk about the mean or range of conspiracy claims.
Basically, there is no useful prior for the truth behind a conspiracy claim. The specifics always move the probability by a massive amount. For me, the specifics of true claims mostly move me off the term “conspiracy” into more specific accusations, but that’s a completely separate point that I don’t HAVE a baseline of credence.