There’s a Dog Man comic where a villain (as it happens) tells Dog Man off. Dog Man goes off and looks sad. The villain then shouts at him: “sadder!”. Dog Man “presses his ‘actually mean it’ button” and looks sadder. The joke works for me because it’s true to this relatable “say it and mean it” dynamic.
I think my reading came from this paragraph, which is expressed as facts about the hypothetical, rather than the 3yo’s experience/model of the hypothetical:
Now you have a serious problem. You don’t have an internal “actually mean it” button. And yet here’s Mom peering into your soul and demanding that you both have that button and press it.
I wouldn’t edit the paragraph, because it’s clear as it is and more words would dilute. To me, it’s a “fridge logic” hypothetical which becomes less compelling on later reflection, but it still has a good impact on first reading.
With the math class example I don’t follow your reasoning. This seems common to me:
problem: the teacher wants me to try hard, but I want to slack off
idea: I will pretend to try hard, but really slack off
problem: the teacher is a telepath and can tell that I’m slacking off
idea: I will deceive myself into thinking that I am trying hard, but really slack off
This also seems common to me:
problem: I hate math class, but the teacher is personally offended by that
idea: I will deceive myself into thinking that I hate math, which will explain away my hatred of math class
But, I don’t see how they connect up in a natural way, to get all the way from the initial problem to the solution of self-deceiving to hate math. Or if they do it feels like so many layers of self-deception that it would be rare. Perhaps this is two Hostile Telepath Problems in one bullet point.
There’s a Dog Man comic where a villain (as it happens) tells Dog Man off. Dog Man goes off and looks sad. The villain then shouts at him: “sadder!”. Dog Man “presses his ‘actually mean it’ button” and looks sadder. The joke works for me because it’s true to this relatable “say it and mean it” dynamic.
I think my reading came from this paragraph, which is expressed as facts about the hypothetical, rather than the 3yo’s experience/model of the hypothetical:
I wouldn’t edit the paragraph, because it’s clear as it is and more words would dilute. To me, it’s a “fridge logic” hypothetical which becomes less compelling on later reflection, but it still has a good impact on first reading.
With the math class example I don’t follow your reasoning. This seems common to me:
problem: the teacher wants me to try hard, but I want to slack off
idea: I will pretend to try hard, but really slack off
problem: the teacher is a telepath and can tell that I’m slacking off
idea: I will deceive myself into thinking that I am trying hard, but really slack off
This also seems common to me:
problem: I hate math class, but the teacher is personally offended by that
idea: I will deceive myself into thinking that I hate math, which will explain away my hatred of math class
But, I don’t see how they connect up in a natural way, to get all the way from the initial problem to the solution of self-deceiving to hate math. Or if they do it feels like so many layers of self-deception that it would be rare. Perhaps this is two Hostile Telepath Problems in one bullet point.