Here's my theory on the huge rise in conspiracy beliefs. The world is rapidly changing since the "information age" started - i.e the availability of the internet to the masses. Before the year 2000 there was nothing as widespread as it is now. Since 2007 onwards the rise of social media and people having smartphones has rapidly increased. Suddenly lots of people have a voice and lots of people are struggling to deal with a world that is rapidly changing to the one they grew up with. This is fear! They wish life was like the "old days". Lots of people read posts online from others giving very simple solutions to complex problems. These are not correct, but people will believe what they want to believe. Very few people do independent fact checking on what they read. Seems like critical thinking is a rare commodity. Bad spelling and grammar in a lot of these type of posts are red flags that the whole thing is bullshit - but people believe what they want to believe, or maybe they don't even notice the bad spelling or grammar (which is worrying).
2020 - Covid happens! Lockdowns are put in place and everyone is either working from home or not working at all. There are no sports events and there is very little to do. How many people just spent their days on the internet looking at posts by people giving them conspiracy theories about covid? I feel this has only amplified the madness. For me, people have been brainwashed by this.
If someone is trying to defend their beliefs then you should be able to show facts and figures to backup your statements. Everything should be up for debate, but you need evidence and I mean proper evidence. I'm always prepared to be wrong if someone can show me convincing evidence. A lot of the evidence that does get shown for mad theories are misspelt tweets or the most amateur of websites that pick and choose data that can be presented to back their argument, meanwhile missing key data that actually disproves their argument. Anyone can misuse data to back any argument, doesn't make it true!