As someone who was once prone to belief in conspiracy theories, I am perhaps oversensitive to their presence in the world.  Now when I look at things like the First and Second World Wars, I see the toxic effect of conspiracy theories all through them.  Of course, as every sensible person has to say in discussing the topic, there are real conspiracies. The issue is that those who are primed to believe in many conspiracy theories have a poor grasp of ascertaining facts, as well as a paranoid outlook.

We need to engage with this topic, even if it seems ridiculous, because as religion shows, ideas have power in the world regardless of whether they are true (not your religion of course!).