Comment

Comment by citadel_melon

Reminds me of the task “don’t think of a pink elephant.” The first thing you do is think of a pink elephant.

The solution is to land on what you want your audience to do in the affirmative. For the pink elephant you can say, “Don’t think of a pink elephant: put your mental energy into imagining Mikey mouse riding a surf board.”

Similarly, here we can say something like “If you’re feeling suicidal, do x.” I’m not sure what x should be. Maybe call a hotline. I would have to think more about it, but the point is that landing on an affirmative action in this manner will offset the “pink elephant” effect.

parent citadel_melon 2 months ago

No comments yet

Be the first to share your thoughts.

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton