A tool kit for the conspiracy-curious

Ross Douthat in his column in the New York Times, A Better Way to Think About Conspiracies:

[…] An excellent rule for anyone who looks at an official narrative and thinks that something seems suspicious: In following your suspicions, never leap to a malignant conspiracy to explain something that can be explained by incompetence and self-protection first.

The quote above is one for the ages, but it still doesn’t do this column justice: I found it brilliant, very precise and clear, very quotable. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.