This is an interesting read about dealing with conspiracy theorists and some of the reasons that people get absorbed into them.
How should you talk to friends and relatives who believe conspiracy theories? - BBC News
I do #3 and #4, but I have to admit that I'm antagonizing rather than trying to solve a conspiracy theorist. Use words like "what's likely" or "what would be more likely than that in this case, and why are we treating several unlikely things linked together, which is really really really unlikely as what they're betting on.
"if rudy has a smoking gun case for mass fraud, which is more likely: 1) he would file it right away, win the case and this would be over, 2) he would tell you that he has something and keep stringing you along with it because people with a point always wait until the last second to actually prove it
If rudy wishes he had a smoking gun case, but is waiting and hoping to find something, which is more likely:
1) he would file it right away and fail showing he has nothing, or 2) above
It seems like it's more likely that he has nothing or he'd be filing it instead of talking about it".
Now, if there are ten other guys just like Rudy saying the same thing - they're sitting on something that would blow this wide open, what are the chances that the first scenario is going on, but they all pick #2.
Wouldn't the one of them who filed and won a case early on stand to gain something? perhaps writing a book, booking paid appearances, fame? How could all of them avoid that?
What's likely is often not convenient, and nobody likes to say "i'll wait and observe everything, and then see what I think the right answer is later". The people who do that are quiet and too busy observing to make a stink. It's nice to be right in the end even if you have to say "I don't know in the interim" and stick to "I think it's more likely that __ and in the absence of proof, I'm going to go with what's likely because that's generally how we get ahead as individuals on the long run....or at least how we avoid very foolish failure."