> The term "conspiracy theory" is always bad faith.
Hard disagree.
The term serves a legitimate purpose: distinguishing between evidence-based claims about actual conspiracies (which do happen) and unfounded or poorly-supported theories. Watergate was a real conspiracy. The tobacco industry really did conspire to hide health risks. But not every claim of hidden coordination is equally credible.
Legitimate uses include describing theories that rely on unfalsifiable reasoning ("any evidence against it is planted"), highlighting lack of credible evidence for extraordinary claims, distinguishing speculation from established facts.
Bad faith uses includ dismissing inconvenient questions without engaging the evidence, shutting down legitimate skepticism of official narratives, or using it as a thought-terminating cliche to avoid debate.
Now, reasonable people can disagree on whether my characterization is in bad faith or legitimate. I think we could agree on that.
No, the word has long lost that purpose. You unfortunately don't influence whether it has or hasn't. Once upon a time "gay" only meant "happy". You can claim "Well when I call a random person enormously gay, I just mean they're enormously happy", but it doesn't matter. You're in a community that uses English, not andsoitislish.
For reference, I wish you were right, it would be great if indeed the word still served that purpose - but it doesn't.
