The real conspiracy is how the media was unable to discuss either critically, leading skeptics to become belivers that something, sinister or benign, was going on.
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity."
Either you are doing that, or you are larping as a foolish conspiracy theorist because it's rather meta to do in this context, which is against the rules concerning trolling/flamebait.
Either way, please don't, it's rather hard to steelman a position that is so far removed from reality.
There are more than enough subreddits for either purpose, but hn should not be subjected to this.
You are correct, after having read a couple of other comments in here which endorsed similar conspiracy theories, I was primed to read the previous comment as of the poster also believed them. This is probably not even the case, it was just an addition of more theories to the list.
Re-reading my comment, it was also unnecessarily snarky, which is against the hn guidelines as well. So I am a hypocrite anyway, and would be even if the comment I replied to had actually endorsed those conspiracy theories in contradiction with the guidelines.
I'm not sure about the best practice in this case, do I delete my previous comment, or let it stand as a monument to my shame?
Donald Trump only won the election because of Russian assistance he asked for.
Hunter Biden's laptop was not genuine and was Russian disinformation.