I miss this brand of kooky theories. It’s sad how the conspiracy space has been monopolized by partisan politics in the past decade. I’d welcome the return of Area 51 and Bigfoot theories into the “mainstream” conspiracy theory arena…
As fun and “harmless” as those old conspiracy theories are, there’s a line of thought that it was exactly those that primed many to fall down the numerous politically-charged conspiracy rabbitholes that exist today, which sounds believable. Those who jumped straight to political conspiracy theories were likely always vulnerable to this sort of thinking, but a significant portion were likely people who weren’t predisposed but had their mental safeguards and sanity checks eroded by Area 51 and Bigfoot sorts of stuff.
If we're going to consider "propensity to believe in things without evidence" to be problematic, I have bad news for you: Religions involving supernatural beliefs have existed for millennia, placing most people on Earth in that bucket.
You’re not wrong but what’s your point? Those people often create terrible policy. So… we are supposed to let conspiracists slide too because there’s this other group that also has problematic beliefs?