Escaping the Rabbit Hole

How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect

By: Mick West

Narrated by: Ralph Lister

Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's Summary

The Earth is flat; the World Trade Center collapse was a controlled demolition; planes are spraying poison to control the weather; and actors faked the Sandy Hook massacre....

All these claims are bunk: falsehoods, mistakes, and in some cases, outright lies. But many people passionately believe one or more of these conspiracy theories. They consume countless books and videos, join like-minded online communities, try to convert those around them, and even, on occasion, alienate their own friends and family. Why is this, and how can you help people, especially those closest to you, break free from the downward spiral of conspiracy thinking? 

In Escaping the Rabbit Hole, author Mick West shares over a decade's worth of knowledge and experience investigating and debunking false conspiracy theories through his forum, MetaBunk.org, and sets forth a practical guide to helping friends and loved ones recognize these theories for what they really are. 

Perhaps counterintuitively, the most successful approaches to helping individuals escape a rabbit hole aren't comprised of simply explaining why they are wrong; rather, West's tried-and-tested approach emphasizes clear communication based on mutual respect, honesty, openness, and patience. 

West puts his debunking techniques and best practices to the test with four of the most popular false conspiracy theories today (chemtrails, 9/11 controlled demolition, false flags, and flat Earth) - providing road maps to help you to understand your friend and help them escape the rabbit hole. These are accompanied by real-life case studies of individuals who, with help, were able to break free from conspiracism. 

With sections on:

• The wide spectrum of conspiracy theories
• Avoiding the "shill" label
• Psychological factors and other complications 
• And concluding with a look at the future of debunking

Mick West has put forth a conclusive, well-researched, practical reference on why people fall down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and how you can help them escape.

©2018 Mick West (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Excellent resource and strategy for rescuing a friend from conspiracy thinking

I have a friend who is deep down the rabbit hole of conspiracy thinking. I was initially attracted to this book because it has dedicated chapters addressing my friend’s conspiracy. As good as these chapters were, I found the greatest value of the book in the beginning chapters which lay out a strategy for engaging my friend in ways most likely to gain me a hearing. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a thoughtful way to engage a friend or family member who may be caught in conspiracy thinking.

Wonderfully woke!

Fact- checkers, conspiracy buffs, and freelance sociologists alike will love this book. Mick's writing is so considerate and his alleigance to fact is apparent in his style. In a world where so many seekers of truth and skeptical minds' intentions are diverted on the journey toward awareness of the world - here is a compass. Whether you wish to better understand the world or how we are wired to see it, this is a great read!

Down Into the Rabbit Hole and Back Out

Great collection of conspiracy theories, why people accept them and how to politely and respectfully lead them out. Discovered some that I had never heard of previously such as chem trails. This does a great job with the type of questions one should approach everything.

The best section is on AI and social media. Scary to think that we will have more conspiracists after being fed a curated diet of progressive content. Instead of the internet being the path out, it will more likely make the rabbit hole the size of the Chunnel if more people don’t embrace a modicum of skepticism.

Conspiracies

This book gives good methods for how to engage with someone in a respectful way. It doesn't really delve into epistemology or the psychology of belief, but it does walk through various 'conspiracies' and ways to engage with those. I appreciated the testimonies of former conspiracy theorists too.

The narrator was ok, but his voice is a little grating and 'tough'.

Another repeat the same theme book…

For as long as this book is, you can get the message in about an hour of listening if not less. Nothing new here. Know who you are dealing with. Don’t attack. Be sympathetic. Seek common ground. Etc etc. This strategy is repeated over and over and over and over and over….get the picture? After a while it becomes annoying.

Ammunition for an Information War

Part of the book does focus on some specific conspiracy theories. Flat Earth, 9/11, and chem trails top the list but there are references to others like the matrix, JFK and moon landing.

I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist. My purpose for getting the book was to learn how to talk to those people that have started down the rabbit hole with regards to politics and fake news. I was happy the author touched upon these factors before the end of the book.

I found the same conversational tactics that are used for conspiratorial theories can be used in the fight against fake news and the political rhetoric it is sometimes surrounded by.

Even if you're not concerned about the conspiracy theories in the book, you'll find the same strategies used to flesh them out can be used in an information war on many topics. Well written and well narrated. #Conspiracy #FakeNews #SelfDiscovery #Tagsgiving #Sweepstakes

So little info in so much time.

The entire book should be condensed into 30 minutes. Much of the info is repeated over and over to fill the time.

Here is the problem

This book tries very hard to use old Illuminati tricks by trying to make those that believe in these things look like conspiracy nuts. However, the problem is that most of the theories used to illustrate the conspiracy theories are actually true! Too bad this book was released prior to COVID 19 because I am sure Mr. West would’ve tried to tell us that the plandemic is just another “conspiracy theory”.

This is 2021

This book is to debunk “conspiracy theories”
Well this is 2021 and what ever was a conspiracy theory 3 years ago, today is a conspiracy against humanity.

Don’t waste your time and money

It is probably just the 2nd book that I left unfinished in my life. Boring and repetitive, I can’t go further than the 4th chapter and nothing interesting arise, sadly, I expected a lot more.

Brilliant

I thought it was extremely interesting and very useful in understanding how people get sucked into believing all sorts of conspiracy theories.

My only critique is that I found it was a little repetitive, but otherwise I thought it covered the subject really well and I have come out with a better understanding of how to approach some subjects. Understanding how people can slowly be indoctrinated into believing something that perhaps a year or two before they themselves would have found absurd.

Not the best narration.

I always enjoy a debunking, but somehow the chap narrating this book makes the subject seem like the world's longest, and most boring TED talk.

Read with a pinch of salt.

Ok so I enjoyed the book and am giving it 5 stars as I believe the author means well. He debunks flat earth and chemtrails pretty convincingly. The disappointment comes from his mentioning of the KFK assassination believing it to be a conspiracy yet the recent (and to be fair old) evidence demonstrates without doubt there was a shooter on the grassy knoll. See a book called "hear no evil" to thoroughly debunk the official story regarding this. The authors website Metabunk is a very mixed bag of information and misinformation but to be fair to the author the content is from contributions from forum members so possibly outside of his control. There are site contributors still claiming the covid vaccine is safe despite the FDA being forced by a judge to release all the trial data showing more died in the vaccinated group than the placebo group, an 87.5% fetal death rate for pregnant women, and 158,000 adverse effects during the initial 12 week rollout. We must debunk and cast aside the authors advice to use fact checker sites too, we can show through the Hunter Biden laptop situation and covid coming from a lab situation how wrong these sources can be. As testified by Marc Zuckerberg under oath these are merely "opinion checkers" not fact checkers. The author does provide some good advice regarding not believening every video you see online. The level of deep-fake videos is becoming extremely realistic so his advice here is worthwhile. All in all a pretty basic and somewhat flawed book however a pretty easy listen and some good talking points. I would definitely like a sequel with more difficult theories to de-bunk along with a list of theories that the author believes are true as he mentions some conspiracy theories are actually factual but doesn't really put himself out there by listing them. Definitely worth a listen or read but before you go framing your debunking certificates so you can put them up on the wall you need to remember, just like Jeffery Epstein they don't hang themselves!

Brilliant

Excellent pure dead brilliant and a that magic super geezer Mike West bot not bot talk bot

Great resource

As someone that has worked with a conspiracy theorist before this book was great at laying out exactly the kind of thinking and approach I tried (and failed) to implement when going about discussing these topics with them. In the end, as laid out in the book, there is no guarantee but still a good approach to take. Would recommend

A must read

What a great kind interesting and diplomatic book. Genuinely helpful advice with a compassionate heart to help people. Learnt a lot and can’t wait to be called a government shill 😂

scary stuff

struggled to follow, but that's the nature of the topic. good book and there are few covering these conspiracy theories and helping people to escape the rabbit hole