> If you believe there are conspiracy theories that turned out to be true then maybe they weren’t actually conspiracy theories but instead theories held by a group of people based on evidence
Where do you get this idea that conspiracy theories can't be based on evidence? It seems like you've preemptively defined "conspiracy theory" to mean ungrounded bullshit. Some conspiracy theories have plenty of evidence, and some don't.
What is the urge to keep the ambiguity? We can do better. Let's use a different word when we mean something different. This should be easy to do, if there is evidence use word A if there isn't sufficient evidence use word B. I'm perplexed why a mainly engineer crowd on HN would put up with this type of bs.
Who's being vague here though? "Conspiracy Theory" is made up of two words with relatively precise meaning. That you decide to attach your own meaning or lack of meaning to it doesn't make everyone else's usage of the term a failure.
Where do you get this idea that conspiracy theories can't be based on evidence? It seems like you've preemptively defined "conspiracy theory" to mean ungrounded bullshit. Some conspiracy theories have plenty of evidence, and some don't.