I obviously have not done as much research as you have. However, I find it curious that countries and scientists around the world believe that masks work, lockdowns work, vaccines work, etc. So, how does it come about that a large set of smart people think this way?

In addition, there are a lot of things that we aren't sure about. And the available information is murky and changing quickly. How can you tell what is true and what is not? Said differently, what was true, but is no longer true?

Even in this post, el gato malo says here is my theory and if this happens, then it strengthens my theory, and if this happens, then it weakens my theory. This is good science.

My problem is that while I am reasonably smart and well informed, I am not an expert in many of the domains necessary to make informed judgements about what is true and what is not. And, like other humans, I can be mislead by incomplete information. For example, earlier this year in LA we had ridiculous case rates and hospitals were overwhelmed. But then people started getting vaccinated and it turned out that the case load dramatically dropped here and it seemed that this was due to the vaccine. It certainly appeared to be. However, in retrospect, this could be a classic case of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Or it could be the case that the vaccine worked just fine on the variant we had then. I have no idea.

I'm just trying to understand what is going on so I can make the best decisions I can with the currently available information.

Re, not being a conspiracy theorist: My experience in life is that most people try to do the right thing. People don't come to work and say, I think I'll do a crappy job today. On the other hand, when you can take a group of well-intentioned people and put them into a large organization, you get a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies move slowly and maybe make bad decisions. But not always.