I’m sorry you had to deal with this.
your point is right, but a huge number of people don’t understand statistical probability, and look for patterns of behaviour in things where it is just random probability playing out.
nor do they understand the difference between cause and correlation
It’s not like they don’t get taught this in schools even pre GCSEs . But it appears a lot of people have either short term memory, weren’t paying attention or believed it was irrelevant to them.
They also don’t understand why they are likely to see threats where there are none or threat in reality is very low. They don’t understand that the amygdala part of the brain (part of the limbic system) is prewired to perceive threats and also prewired to look for patterns of events/behaviours. That prewiring will always be the most important thing the brain wants to do. Good survival reasons for that as a species and natural selection ensured we will always do this. Once stress and anxiety increases, at a perceived threat, the human brain goes into “reptile” brain mode where we respond primarily due to external stimulus (ready for flight, flight, freeze). The “thinking” part of brain controlling rational /“executive” thinking shuts down. That part of brain is needed for critical thinking, planning, learning, etc .
so, Conspiracy theorist are getting worked up over perceived threats bought about by their ignorance of the above, that makes them anxious, brain then ups its responsiveness to perceived threat, stresses, more reptilian thinking and on and on. Working themselves into a world of increasing threats and fears. Meaning less chance for rational thinking . If they actually understood how their brain works, and how we have this tendency to over perceives threats or risks where there are one, maybe they break that cycle and start to think more rationally