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

You've got different types of conspiracy theories that you lay out in the book escaping the rabbit hole, can we go over these? There's like event conspiracies and different layers of like the government made it happen or just let it happen.

What I talk about in my book a lot is talking to a friend.

How do we get our friends to start coming out of the rabbit hole? This is part of what your book is about, escaping the rabbit hole.

Mick West, thank you very much for coming on the show. We'll link to your stuff in the show notes. I find it fascinating and I appreciate your time. Yeah, thank you very much. It's been a very interesting discussion. Big thank you to Mick West, his book is called escaping the rabbit hole.

If they've already started down this rabbit hole, you said it doesn't matter which theories they might believe, it matters where they draw the line, this demarcation line. Can you take us through this? This is a useful practical for people who are like, I'm listening to you and it's interesting, but like, tell me how does stop Uncle Frank from talking about this crap at Christmas.

If you want to know how I managed to book all these great guests, it's always been about my network. Check out our 6 Minute Networking course which is free that's over at jordanharbinger.com/course.

Mick West thank you very much for coming on the show we'll link to your stuff in the show notes I find it fascinating and I appreciate your time.

Big thank you to Mick West his book is called escaping the rabbit hole he's also got metabunk.com will be linking to him in the show notes of course as we always do

How do we get our friends to start coming out of the rabbit hole? This is part of what your book is about escaping the rabbit hole if they've already started down this rabbit hole you said it doesn't matter which theories they might believe it matters where they draw the line, this demarcation line can you take us through this this is a useful practical for people who are like I'm listening to you and it's interesting but like tell me how does stop Uncle Frank from talking about this crap at Christmas.

You've got different types of conspiracy theories that you lay out in the book escaping the rabbit hole can we go over these there's like event conspiracies and different layers of like the government made it happen or just let it happen can we outline this is kind of a way a cool way to parse these things

If people are going to take actions based on their morals, you want them to also have it based on accurate information rather than information that doesn't actually reflect reality.

So that's one of the reasons why I debunk. I want people to focus on real issues and not on the fake issues.

How do we get our friends to start coming out of the rabbit hole? This is part of what your book is about escaping the rabbit hole if they've already started down this rabbit hole you said it doesn't matter which theories they might believe it matters where they draw the line, this demarcation line can you take us through this this is a useful practical for people who are like I'm listening to you and it's interesting but like tell me how does stop Uncle Frank from talking about this crap at Christmas.

Well we talked about a lot of different conspiracy theories here some of them are fairly straightforward like say pharmaceutical companies trying to cover up the lack of efficacy of their drugs for profit that's like a very straightforward thing you could say that there were good things like you know the tobacco companies that was a real conspiracy so not much of a stretch to say that there could be other similar conspiracies and there's more extreme conspiracies there's like 9-11 conspiracies and there's a wide range within that there's controversial conspiracy theories there's things like false flags saying sandy hook was fake then there's more even more extreme ones like the flatter and aliens and alien shape-chifting aliens being running the world so this is spectrum of conspiracy theories now everyone has kind of a point on this spectrum where they draw the line for me it's fairly low down like I think there are conspiracies to do with industry and those conspiracies to do with government and corruption and things like that some people have draw the line a little bit further along they will think that you know JFK was associated by the CIA even further along they will say you know the vaccines are bad for you it's being covered up by the government and then further along the 9-11 was an inside job things like that and understanding where people draw the line on this conspiracy spectrum is very important when you want to talk to them because there's no point talking to them about things that they think are ridiculous they'll draw lines somewhere on a conspiracy spectrum and on one side of it they think everything is sensible everything on the other side of the line is ridiculous so talk to them about that they'll think you're making fun of that if you talk to them on things that are too far down the sensible side of their line then you won't get very far because those are such entrenched beliefs there's such foundational beliefs so far away from the line that there's no way you're going to shift them on those beliefs so what you're going to do is focus on the beliefs that actually exist around where they draw the line things where they think at this point I believe this but I don't believe this thing which is a little bit more extreme than that and a common place for say 9-11 truth is where they draw the line is whether a cruise missile hit the Pentagon a lot of people who believe that 9-11 was an inside job think that the planes hit the buildings but the Pentagon was actually attacked by a cruise missile and that is something that they don't generally believe things that are way more extreme than that they do and believe that the towers were destroyed by laser beams from space or something like that so if you can get them to focus on this one thing you've got a much better chance of changing their opinion about this thing that's close to where they draw the line then you have in something like say the JFK Magic Bullet Theory or something like that something that's a foundational belief for them so you focus on these things around this line and you get them to shift the line a little bit that gives you a little bit of momentum they've shifted the line down they've seen that these things in this region around the line are in depth and I think if this is false you know what else might be false and sometimes you don't even need to debunk something around the line you can simply point out well you believe this I say you believe the towers were brought down by control demolition why don't you believe the thing that's just on the other side of the line why don't you believe if they don't why don't you believe that the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile as all is supposed evidence is the evidence so much better for this thing than it is for this thing why do you believe one thing but not the other giving them to examine why they believe what they believe is a very important part of getting them to accept more reasonable explanations for their beliefs and for seeing why their beliefs are actually wrong or why other beliefs might be correct.