Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America cover
Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
ISBN: 0312658850
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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...