[nerdponx]

> Pointing out ‘the other side are conspiracy theorists’ or ‘the people who believe this also believe these other terrible things’ does not prove the other side is wrong, nor is it going to convince anyone on the other side that they are wrong.

It is completely legitimate in my opinion to use "the people who believe this also believe these other terrible things" as an argument against the possible motivations of the people who believe whatever the current thing is.

Imagine a conspiracy theory that Jack and the Beanstalk was a true story, which was suppressed by the medieval Church, in order to restrict public access to the great riches of Heaven and keep them for the Church only. Let's say also that a large number of prominent and long-standing Jack&Beanstalk truth researchers also happen to be extreme right-wing xenophobic nationalists, some of whom have publicly posted really disgusting bigoted things on Pleroma. No matter how compelling the J&B evidence is, in my opinion it's both intellectually rational and morally appropriate to question the entire J&B conspiracy theory. Who benefits by promoting the theory? What worldview does it support? What worldview does the traditional narrative ("it's a fairy tale") contradict?