What CrankyCharlie posted tempts me to a comment: It's very easy to dismiss anything which is against the Mainstream as "Conspiracy Theory".

1 or maybe 2 years ago I wrote a post about the EcoAlliance having applied 2018 for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) funding for "Gain of Function" Research on the “furin cleavage site” which enables the virus to more efficiently bind to and release its genetic material into a human cell and is one of the reasons that the virus is so easily transmissible and harmful. And other strange factors which might point to the virus maybe being leaked from a laboratory. I said and still say "maybe". Of course my post was quickly dismissed :-)

But here is another thing that shortly ago would have been dismissed as "Conspiracy Theory": The UK tainted blood scandal.

BBC (if you don't like the BBC look at Wikipedia or wherever else - or just read your news): Authorities covered up the infected blood scandal... The five-year investigation accused doctors, government and the NHS of letting patients catch HIV and hepatitis. More than 30,000 people were infected from 1970 to 1991 by contaminated blood products and transfusions. About 3,000 have since died and more deaths will follow... Inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff... Addressing the issue of a cover-up, he said that better wording to describe it was "hiding the truth"... elements of "downright deception", including destroying documents.

The problem I am seeing: Especially nowadays, in the time of the Internet, it's impossible to decide what is truth and what's not. That creates "Cognitive Dissonance". The easiest way to get rid of it is to reduce the overwhelming complexity of the Reality we are confronted with by labeling everything that is contrary to the mainstream narrative as "Conspiracy Theory" - - - especially because in many/most cases it IS nothing more than that. And that makes it easy to over-simplify and to brand everything which otherwise would create headache as "Conspiracy Theory".