A 'conspiracy theorist' is nothing more than a person speculating. "Theorists" do not deal in fact, they deal in speculation of potential fact.

I can be a conspiracy theorist and theorize that all shoe companies are trying to keep our natural human bodies from touching the earth, because the earth gives us power when we touch it with our bare feet.

That's a conspiracy theory. Stupid sounding one, but that's what it is. Should we all throw our shoes at the local Payless and protest Foot Locker because of my theory? Of course not.

So what can we do about my theory? Basically, point and laugh. If I'm not willing to test my theory myself and evidence that it is true, how can I expect anyone else to do it for me?

Theory is an appropriate thing to hate when you're talking about crime and punishment. We shouldn't punish people based on speculation, and in fact, in this country we don't. Considering the type of conspiracies asserted (rape coverups, pedophilia coverups, murder coverups, etc etc etc), I'm assuming the end-goal must be to bring justice to the wrong-doers, right?? Well to do that we need evidence, not pitchforks.

We don't allow speculation in a court room: We shouldn't allow it in the court of public opinion. Speculate to yourselves all you like, but don't expect anyone to take you seriously until you provide hard evidence. Otherwise you're no different than a child with an imaginary friend, spinning wild stories in your head.

But evidence it and at that point you won't be a theorist any more. You're not dealing in speculation then, you're dealing in evidenced fact.

You'll have evidenced an actual conspiracy. Hence the name of the sub. And doing so is much more difficult than just asserting that a conspiracy exists. Look at the 'disappeared protester' posts in /r/conspiracy. That kind of bollocks gets upvoted, even though it's well known that he's safe and sound. Because it sounds juicy. That's why /r/conspiracy gets made fun of so much. You guys are the old man in the back of the room saying "what about this?!" when the answer is up on the whiteboard. If it's something you don't agree with, "they must be in on the conspiracy". Queue the paranoia and X-Files music.

It's also incredibly ironic that you look down on that as a 'circlejerk' while at the same time, you're just participating in a meta-circlejerk here and now. What does OP's post have anything to do with /r/conspiracy or conspiracies as you know it in general? Nothing. It's simply pointing out a group that is opposed to you, so thus, you're opposed to them. That's a circlejerk, definitively. We also call this a feedback loop in polite conversation.

Feedback loops are used to great effect by Conspiracy Inc and /r/Conspiracy alike. Again, what does OP's post here have anything to do with a conspiracy? Nothing. It's propaganda and rabblerousing, you just happen to agree with it. That's part of the loop: it keeps those who kind of agree moving towards fully agree. And that's where the racism undertones come into play: If you kind of agree that there's a global cabal of international bankers and businessmen pushing the world to a slave-state, then you're not far off from saying "... and it's run by the Jews". In a nutshell, that's the issue that reddit has with /r/conspiracy. It's been co-opted by racists with an agenda, because conspiracy believers are quick to believe anything if it's juicy enough.