People I normally respect have bought in on some crazy-ass conspiracy theories.  Elon, Balaji, PMarca... all super smart, and all tweeting crazy shit. I did some research to see why people get hooked on conspiracy theories:
https://www.charterless.com/p/do-your-own-research-the-psychology

Writing about DAOs @ charterless.com.
Ex-FB, Amherst College.
Always an Eagles Fan.

Examples of crazy conspiracy theories (minus Elon)?

SBF: do you think his political donations affected his post-FTX implosion treatment at all?

WEF: can argue over semantics, but elites love overpopulation fear-mongering:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome

twitter.com/landnoli/status/1340180992255008770

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Study_Memorandum_200

sure, 
- Balaji on SBF's delayed-arrest (it must be because he donated money and not because a massive financial fraud case takes longer than 24 hours to generate a winning case for...).
- Marc Andreesen on WEF paranoia. And claiming that there was some kind of mainstream alliance in favor of Ehrlich's pop bomb theory.

I think it would be helpful if we talked about hypotheses rather than theories. A CT sounds too settled to most folks and is quickly dismissed by citing one or two crazy examples (eg lizard people). A hypothesis would be more open to debate and exploration.

I prefer to just call them theories. Conspiracy is such a dismissive way of phrasing it. Not a fan of the label and removes important discussion and nuance.