The Madness of Believing

A Memoir from Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine

De: Josh Owens

Narrado por: Josh Owens

An unvarnished and immersive dive into the world of conspiracy theories, propaganda, and disinformation from a former Infowars insider caught in the orbit of Alex Jones’s madness.

At twenty-four-years old, Josh Owens dropped out of film school when a job offer arrived from the very world that had already begun to warp his sense of reality. After years of being pulled in by Alex Jones’s magnetic persona and anti-establishment defiance, he’d become entangled in a universe built on suspicion, spectacle, and carefully manufactured lies. When the call came, he packed up his life and moved halfway across the country, setting off on a journey that would unravel everything he thought he believed.

The Madness of Believing follows Josh’s experience working at Infowars, where he became one of Jones’s most trusted employees. He began traveling across the world creating “news” stories, staging chaos, and spreading outright lies to Infowars’s ever-growing audience. As he rose through the ranks, his skepticism grew, and Josh underwent a personal transformation just as Infowars too changed from a fringe community to a mainstream disinformation machine.

Josh’s story is one playing out across America: that of impressionable young people pulled into a dangerous world where reality and fiction are blurred, and extremist beliefs gain steam. The Madness of Believing is a reckoning with this climate, one that provides riveting insight into these supposedly radical, truth-driven organizations while exposing their dangerous rhetoric and lies.

Eye opener... maybe not

In some ways it's an interesting story of someone who walked away from a delusional path and found his way back. But I nearly gave up halfway through. The accounts of working for Rogan on various cases just aren't that compelling, and had I known what was actually in the book, I probably wouldn't have bought it. Jon Ronson's books are far more insightful, and it's telling that Ronson himself is mentioned here, which only reminded me of how much better his line of research is. Put it on 1.5x or faster if you still want to check it. But be ready to be dissappointed.