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Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America

Barbara Ehrenreich · 3 HN comments
HN Books has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention "Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America" by Barbara Ehrenreich.
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Amazon Summary
Barbara Ehrenreich's New York Times bestselling Bright-sided is a sharp-witted knockdown of America's love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism Americans are a "positive" people -- cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: This is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive is the key to getting success and prosperity. Or so we are told. In this utterly original debunking, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the false promises of positive thinking and shows its reach into every corner of American life, from Evangelical megachurches to the medical establishment, and, worst of all, to the business community, where the refusal to consider negative outcomes--like mortgage defaults--contributed directly to the current economic disaster. With the myth-busting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of positive thinking: personal self-blame and national denial. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best--poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.
Yep. Haven't read, but you might like:Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312658850/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_d...
Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a good book about this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Sided-Positive-Thinking-Undermi...
This is a very dangerous project idea. Have you, for one second, considered that this is not a sales funnel, where the only thing that counts is the "success rate" at the other end, but something dealing with people in a crisis? People who may just be considering suicide, and can be tipped in both ways. For example by a pseudo-empathic bot that tells them the same shit they hear all day in the US, which sounds nice but is the culturally accepted way to say "Please either pretend to be happy, or shut up" [1].

Please generously apply the hacker mentality to software, arduinos, knitting, cooking and art, if you like. Don't be afraid to fail, nothing bad happens there. Build, test, iterate, enjoy.

There are, however, things in life where the stakes are higher. They require more knowledge than you can quickly gather with a Google search, and, you know, professionalism. Healthcare is one of these topics.

[1] As this seems to be a bit of a cultural blind spot for people in the US, I highly recommend http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Sided-Positive-Thinking-Undermi...

szidev
what the fuck merited this response? i've read and re-read my comment, and i can't seem to find anything that would suggest that i'm seeing people simply as numbers here. are you honestly so jaded and cynical that you think someone talking about suicide prevention doesn't realize there is a human element to the matter?
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