That's a tautology. The phrase "conspiracy theory" intends something only a fool or a fanatic would believe—that's why it's always accompanied by ridiculing language. Cases shown to be real are not called "conspiracy theories" but "history".
I doubt it. And I get why you might find the thread annoying. But I believe people mostly use the term "conspiracy theory" to reinforce the assumptions of their own worldview. The comment to which I replied seems like a good example of that, since it didn't react to anything specific about this case (disavowed any knowledge of it, in fact), only the form that it took.
One piece of evidence for this security-blanket interpretation of "conspiracy theory" is that we're much more likely to invoke the term about things that happen close to home, and much less likely to resort to it about things that happen abroad. Also, the ridiculing language that invariably accompanies the term is a social ritual. It has no content; its function is to enforce consensus belief. The human need for consensus belief is profound and we're largely unconscious of its influence on us, which makes it that much stronger.
I think this phenomenon is fascinating and I wish it were possible to study it at a more-than-anecdotal level, but I don't know of anything like that.
p.s. I think it's cool that this thread contains comments from not just an actual firefighter, but (if I'm reading correctly) a firefighter-programmer. As my sister-in-law likes to say: you barely ever get that!
The very first thread HN had about Hastings crash was full of good comments like that --- someone whose cofounder died in a similar crash in a BMW, someone who posted a video(!) of a car crashing into a tollbooth and bursting into flames, a comment from 'JshWright who's been a firefighter/EMT for 10 years talking about the burn pattern in the video, another comment explaining how much worse the fire probably looked because of the limits of nighttime photography, comments from international assassination expert 'tzs about the Wil-E-Coyote nature of a plot to kill someone with an exploding car.
It was great.
But because of the nature of HN, all it takes is for the same story to get posted again and again, and eventually we get a thread that makes it to the top of the front page without all that high-quality debunking.
Incidentally: another group of people using conspiracy-theoretic putdowns to dismiss the notion that Hastings was murdered: journalists. Google [hastings conspiracy theory]. Or [ambinder hastings]. Or [hastings truthers].
That's a tautology. The phrase "conspiracy theory" intends something only a fool or a fanatic would believe—that's why it's always accompanied by ridiculing language. Cases shown to be real are not called "conspiracy theories" but "history".