It sounds too much like the iconic men in a dark room smoking cigars planning the demise of anything that stands between them and global domination, I agree... That said, I think that iconic picture is a tool to distract from the fact that the power structures of human civilization have always been inherently conspiratorial... Obviously there's not some single monolithic group conspiring, there are many different people vying for power, and they either work against each other, or together, depending on how they believe it will serve their own agenda best... But "conspiracy theories" is a term that was demonstrably created as a strategy to diminish dissent.