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In 2019, conspiracy theories have gone mainstream. Trump became President on the back of a racist conspiracy theory that Obama was a Kenyan Muslim. Or maybe the conspiracy theory is some variant of le affair de Russe. Beyond the political, conspiracy theories ferment and multiply on Youtube, with the recommender engine pushing increasingly extreme content towards viewers. It seems like there's no escape from the rabbit hole.
Mick West is the administrator of MetaBunk, a popular conspiracy debunking forum that started with Chemtrails, and he believes that he can help. (As an aside, West made his money as a programmer on Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Heck yeah, Superman!) This book is written as an an aid to help "your friend", a hypothetical conspiracy theorist, find their way out, with examples drawing from Chemtrails, 9/11 Truthers, False Flag mass shootings, and Flat Earth.
West approach is one of patient respect. Getting people out of the conspiracy hole isn't easy. The trick is to avoid triggering emotional/cognitive defense mechanisms, while exposing your friend to outside information. Conspiracy "facts" are astoundingly shoddy, full of obvious errors, gaps, and contradictions. It's just that most people never bother going to any sort of primary resource, instead choosing to repeat comfortable lies and memes. As West puts it, all of us have a threshold for conspiracies. We might hold conspiratorial beliefs that we believe are totally rational (West's example is that he himself believes pharmaceutical companies collude to drive up health care costs), while having a line for something silly. "Bush did 9/11" Truthers don't much care for "nanothermite" Truthers, who think the tinfoil hats in the "space lasers" camps are insane.
Sadly, there's no magic bullet for undoing conspiracy theories. As West describes it, we're herd animals, and someone who's made conspiracy beliefs part of their identity takes a lot of love to save. But it can be done.
Mick West is the administrator of MetaBunk, a popular conspiracy debunking forum that started with Chemtrails, and he believes that he can help. (As an aside, West made his money as a programmer on Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Heck yeah, Superman!) This book is written as an an aid to help "your friend", a hypothetical conspiracy theorist, find their way out, with examples drawing from Chemtrails, 9/11 Truthers, False Flag mass shootings, and Flat Earth.
West approach is one of patient respect. Getting people out of the conspiracy hole isn't easy. The trick is to avoid triggering emotional/cognitive defense mechanisms, while exposing your friend to outside information. Conspiracy "facts" are astoundingly shoddy, full of obvious errors, gaps, and contradictions. It's just that most people never bother going to any sort of primary resource, instead choosing to repeat comfortable lies and memes. As West puts it, all of us have a threshold for conspiracies. We might hold conspiratorial beliefs that we believe are totally rational (West's example is that he himself believes pharmaceutical companies collude to drive up health care costs), while having a line for something silly. "Bush did 9/11" Truthers don't much care for "nanothermite" Truthers, who think the tinfoil hats in the "space lasers" camps are insane.
Sadly, there's no magic bullet for undoing conspiracy theories. As West describes it, we're herd animals, and someone who's made conspiracy beliefs part of their identity takes a lot of love to save. But it can be done.