The problem is that the term is a combination of name calling and appeal to authority used to quickly discredit a theory, and has been applied to significant minority theories that have turned out to be true. It’s more work but better form to avoid the term and confront fringe theories with solid argumentation.

"fringe theories" are bullet proof against solid argumentation. The counter argument is: you are a paid shill of - insert boogeyman shorthand here.

If fringe theories would be susceptible to reason then the bulk of them wouldn't exist and the remainder would not be classified as a belief system but just another theory waiting for confirmation or rebuttal.

This sounds like frustration at the inability to change the beliefs of people. People will often behave irrationally, and yes there is nothing we can do about that. They have done this forever, and likely will continue to do that forever. You can only have a rational argument with them if they care to find the truth, and most people most of the time do not. On the other hand, many people come to Hacker News explicitly to participate in rational discussion, and seeing this kind of low value dismissal is disappointing. I would have ignored it out of hand if it didn’t have your name on it.

> seeing this kind of low value dismissal is disappointing

> I would have ignored it out of hand

Those two next to each other is kind of amusing.

"low value dismissal" is the antecedent of the pronoun "it". On HN we routinely ignore low value dismissals. You know this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

I think there are two forms popularly used. One is to refer to what might be thought of paranoid, irrational beliefs. Another is that there is a theory about a conspiracy.

The issue is that by not acknowledging that there are two separate uses, people end up lumping any theory about a conspiracy into "conspiracy theory".

For example, I remember reading a comment on HN around 2010 from someone who worked at an internet backbone. They said that there was some secret fiber cables, nobody knew what they were for, but they were not allowed to touch them. However they were the same size/caliber as the other cables that went to the next backbone, so the reasonable conclusion was that basically all traffic that went out of one pipe went out the other one too. And it was some kind of US government thing.

That, plus other things I've seen over the years, convinced me that the US had a massive domestic spying operation, like the NSA. There were news articles about the NSA building massive new facilities post 9/11 -- what would the point be of them? Turns out I was right, thanks to the Snoweden revelations, and honestly I didn't understand why they were such a big deal. OK, it was hard evidence, but it blew my mind that people were sooo surprised that it existed. Sometimes, occam's razor suggests a conspiracy.

This is a far-cry from the theory that the world is ruled by lizard people.

Spot on. So, the one was a theory, the world being ruled by Lizard people is a conspiracy theory.

This list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories

Does not include anything even remotely like 'The NSA is listening in on all of us'. At present it is not even a theory, it is established fact but at no point in the past would I have put that on the same level of the items on that list.

The paranoid irrational beliefs one is the one that I think best covers the payload. The second one is only interesting from a pedantic/academic point of view.

Do you think, for example, that the death of Jeremy Epstein was not really a suicide is as unlikely as any others? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories#Je...

Or, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories#MK... which we actually know as having been real (though not necessarily all of the related theories are true, as I don't know what they are. But I am pretty sure that if you said "the goverment is kidnapping Americans and doing chemical mind control experiments on them" before all the facts abotu MKUltra came out, people would have labeled you a conspiracy theory nut.

I've yet to see proof of Epstein's suicide. It may be true, it may not be true, likely we will never know. A proper conspiracy about it does not just state that there is a possibility that Epstein committed suicide, it will also include who did it and why.

As for the MKUltra stuff: the whole crux of a good conspiracy theory is that it is rooted in some real world event and then puts a crazy spin on it. People probably don't even realize when they step off the cliff of reason into the world of the nut cases.