I tend to find people who are a bit crazy/conspiracy brained tend to easily accept other people's motives as being insane as their own reasoning.

Similar to how one can't logic themselves into a position they fought against logic to get into, I don't think people can usually empathize their way out of a position they fought against empathy to get into.

Imo that's why ridicule is maybe more effective even though it will entrench some of them. The conspiracy aspect is hardest to explain with raw quantity though. Its like "there are like 10-20 million people in america who interface with NASA and plane pilots and like 200 million americans who interact with airlines and can vouch for every flight path, you think all these people are all in cahoots?" Because getting like 10 people to all show up a job and work together on a day is tough business. Getting 10,000 million+ together to play an elaborate prank for 500 years would cost more than the GDP of planet earth.