Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect

The Boston Marathon bombing was staged with actors and fake blood, Obama is a Muslim, nanofibers infest your skin, the World Trade Center was a controlled demolition, the Moon landings were a hoax, planes are spraying poison to control the weather, and the Earth is flat. All these claims are bunk, falsehoods, mistakes and lies. But some people believe they are true. Why is this, and how can you help people escape the rabbit hole of conspiracy thinking?

Author Mick West has been debunking false claims regarding conspiracy theories for over a decade. In this book he explains what this conspiracy theory bunk is all about, how people get sucked into false beliefs, and how you can help them out.

But how do you debunk effectively? If your relative trots out one of these claims and you’ve said “check it on Snopes.com” and they still think it’s true, then what can you do about it? What if the claim is a new one, about a breaking news story, where do you go to verify or debunk a new claim of evidence for some conspiracy. If you’ve found some bunk, then what’s the best way of debunking? How do you disseminate the information in a manner that resonates? How do you debunk someone when they have been finessing their bunk for a decade and you have just started looking? How do you inform without alienating? Escaping the Rabbit Hole tells you how.

This book provides a practical basis for the art of debunking. Practical advice is given for debunking at the level of an individual, with particular attention given to the most sensitive type of debunking - that of friends, relatives, and loved-ones. While this is often in person, there is increasingly a large component of all such interactions that is carried out on social media and requires special consideration.

Several case studies are given in major topics from chemtrails and 9/11 to Morgellons and Flat Earth. The history of the topic is discussed, where the bunk came from, what are the motivations behind it, what are the claims, and how can they be debunked. I conclude the book with a look at mental illness, how to deal with complex topics, and the future of bunk and debunking.