I came to the conclusion early on in my career that Science Fiction may be doomed after the turn of the century. By then, I thought that moon bases and routine rockets to the moon would be an everyday occurrence. We are more interested in Inner space than outer space. We are more fascinated with true crime, and political scandal. You whip them together in the 21st century and it is obvious that the result would be popularity in conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theory is the new drama.
It also perpetuates it in some sick and twisted Irony. Conspiracy theories are theories and they are not facts. They can be written as such to be respected or ridiculed. They are opinions, which may or may not be true. They infer the existence of relationships between facts, which may in fact have no relationship and draw conclusions based solely on such inferences without any other proof.