&gt; I recall HN saying gold market manipulation was conspiracy theory (...)<p>This is a pretty good example actually. ZH covered the gold&#x2F;silver&#x2F;libor market manipulation in pretty good detail. They also explained a lot about the insides of these deals, I frankly had no clue about. They did a pretty good job on thios one. However, this is not a conradiction to what [parent] said. Consipiracy theories do attract an authoritarian leaning mindset, he is right.<p>Also, on a sidenote: There are conspiracy theories that have some credibility, some of them even became true in the past (NSA, P2, at some point even the existence of the Mafia was one). Conspiracy theories become problematic, when they become an ideology. When you explain everyone and everything in the context of a conspiracy, you run in a one-way filter-bubble, because everything supports the theory, especially facts, that contradict them.