What always gets me in a conspiracy thinking spiral is remembering that the people (that were always portrayed as total nutters) talking about the us gov investigating mind control and drugging people were right (mk ultra, etc).

I maintain that "conspiracy theory" should not be a thought stopper. One should not disregard something just because it seems like a classic "conspiracy theory". Most people I discuss stuff like that with just stop thinking after forming the thought "conspiracy theory".

On the other side we see what happens if people "do their own research"...