[kritiko]

He was into NLP (the hypnosis theory) from way back.

James Hoffman, the coffee YouTuber, had an interesting comment on how he tried to use that in one of his 90s barista competitions, but seemed skeptical of it now. Scott remained a believer.

[diydsp]

It's a communications skill, like, say, making powerpoint slides. If you get good at it, you will swear by it. But if can't gain skill, it's easy to think it's bogus. If you're deeply interested I can go into detail as to what it's about and not about. Or you can buy some books, get a trainer, or take a class.

Tl; dr: it's about adding a second layer to your communication which attends to the subconscious, not unlike art. It was originally for therapy, but unfortunately a lot of businessdorks in the 90s got into it and perverted it.

[kritiko]

I’m interested. Especially if you can point to moments in your career or projects where it has worked.

[tim333]

I've pondered awhile on what hypnosis is. My current model is it's like prompting LLMs, the hypnotic commands are just stuff in the context window but not currently being talked about.

[soulofmischief]

Social manipulation has been around a lot longer than the books and movements attempting to redress it as "hypnosis".