It's been awhile since I've linked a single article, but I absolutely loved the Popular Mechanics article, "How You've Been Conditioned to Love Conspiracy Theories"

"In addition to xenophobia, O’Leary fell victim to “proportionality bias,” the logical fallacy that believes the cause of an event should feel as important as its impact. Proportionality bias lies behind many of the most popular conspiracy theories. For instance, it feels disproportionate that JFK, the so-called most powerful man in the world, could have been assassinated by one disturbed individual, or that Princess Diana,—a powerful, famous, real-world princess—was killed in a car accident."

I wish I could say I had "proportionality bias" as part of my lexicon prior to this as I certainly intuitively understood that many conspiracies are a desire to assert order in a chaotic world and an artifact of the "Tiger in the brush" scenario". It stipulates that it was evolutionarily advantageous to spot false patterns than none at all. If you believed there was a tiger in the brush, then regardless if there is actually a tiger in the brush, you'd still be rewarded with a continuous existence. Thus, evolution tolerates, if not rewards, a baseline paranoia, and overactive imagination. It's this same process that allows many to find meaning in the noise, be it the infamous Virgin Mary in peanut butter to believing that 9/11 was an inside job.

About the only thing missing is that from my (albeit somewhat limited) observations, conspiracies act as currency among the indoctrinated which is its own chaotic agent and generally any rebutal is met as further evidence of the conspiracy as it's just that much deeper. It many ways, conspiracies have filled the void as Americans become increasingly less religious although clearly no more logical.

After a year of being stuck, tethered to social media, the claws of conspirancies turn family members into born-again believers and we're all the worse for it.