Well... for me, it would mean the desire to impart a large scale narrative to the sum total of many individual and/or random events. The total effect of many little incentives and actions does sometimes seem to produce something that has a central directive (evolution?). Our best tools against this seeming signal in the noise are the scientific method and the statistical analysis of data. Keeping in mind that those tools can't prove truth, but only to disprove falseness. However, the understanding and application of those tools are a specialised field that not many in the world's population understand... and thus, a funny or catching meme... or a poll disguised as statistics will often trump those tools.

However, all said and done... there are conspiracies, both past and present... however, by using our energy and effort chasing phantom conspiracies... we allow the real (and much less exciting ones...) and damaging ones to pass through. Also, there is also the possibility that we make mistakes in science and mathematics, however, the tools are there to self correct...