> Never got even a crazy answer the that question. Just blank stares.
Because it never occurred to them, I suspect. It would only have occurred to them if they were checking the conspiracy hypothesis with reality, trying to poke holes in the claim. That's the very opposite of a conspiracy theorist who already has the conclusion and is now attempting to back-justify it.
We all have our cognitive dissonances, but perhaps the hallmark of "conspiracy theory" thought is that it persists despite whatever degree of dissonance it has with the rest of reality (even reality as acknowledged by the believer). Probably because it never gets subjected to such "integration testing" and so exists in its own self-contained universe, free of all the other implied consequences, if it were true. Pointing out such inconsistencies won't do any good. Because such inconsistencies are never seen as actual flaws in their hypothesis (which of course, is correct). At best, you simply don't understand and your argument is seen as a giant fallacy. At worst, well... you're probably in on it, anyway.