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It might very well be because of other factors, as said in the article: > "She calculated that in 2005, unmarried middle-aged men were 3.5 times more likely th

It might very well be because of other factors, as said in the article: > "She calculated that in 2005, unmarried middle-aged men were 3.5 times more likely than married men to die from suicide, and their female counterparts were as much as 2.8 times more likely to kill themselves. The divorce rate has doubled for middle-aged and older adults since the 1990s, she said." There has been huge changes in our societies concerning the role of men and women, their relations, when/if they have children, the type of jobs available (which many are soul-wrecking pointless work), the food we eat, the move towards atheism, the increase in material wealth, the Internet... There is a myriad of possible factors and we need some serious studies before we can reach a conclusion. You can't just say "it's because capitalism" and be done with it.

twoquestions 10y ago
I agree with you that capitalism alone doesn't increase suicide, but needing to sell all of your time/energy to keep a roof over your head and food in your mouth and still being told you're not good enough is depressing as all hell. We severely undervalue social value for material value, and we're suffering horribly for it.
- leaveyou 10y ago
  I upvoted both of you but you seem to contradict each other.. now I start to question my clarity. I think capitalism became very good at optimizing for profit and it pushes aside faster than ever anything that stays in it's path (and now that's more and more people). >We severely undervalue social value for material value Unfortunately the market has spoken: material value.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > Unfortunately the market has spoken: material value. Society is what we make of it. We still have a choice. Also, kudos to everyone up the chain in this subthread; this is the discourse I expect when coming to HN.
  - deepnet 10y ago
    > the market has spoken: The extent that the market is a free market is much debated.
    - leaveyou 10y ago
      I should have used quotes (") around market but I already used my quota of quotes today..
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    "Underlying social value" is oh so much harder to measure. whose social; whose value?
- maratd 10y ago
  > needing to sell all of your time/energy to keep a roof over your head and food in your mouth and still being told you're not good enough is depressing as all hell. This is how it's always been. So that doesn't hold water. I think the problem is, and you touched on this in your original comment, is that some people don't get a chance to "sell their time/energy". The unemployment numbers being quoted everywhere are a joke. Those numbers exclude discouraged workers who exit the economy and those people are the likeliest to off themselves.
  - jonhinson 10y ago
    The U-4 (unemployed + discouraged workers) for March was 5.3% as opposed to the U-3 (unemployed) of 5% [1]. 1. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
    - thatcat 10y ago
      Hm, I wonder how they hack these numbers together. I just made up my own unemployment metric, absolute unemployment. A-U = Population - Employees. For US. A-U = 308 mil. - 140 mil.(1) which suggests there is about 55% of the population who are not currently employed. So, A-U - U-4 = the approximately 50% of the population who don't need jobs I guess. 1.http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001 http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
      - zanny 10y ago
        Population in that case includes children and the retired. Albeit, I hate using the phrase "retired" here. Retired for most simply means the equivalent of someone being born into wealth retiring at age 0. Anyway, there are around 75 million kids, so real figures are something like 40% unemployed. But a lot of people are working under the table, no longer in classical employment, etc. Though hopefully the kids are also doing something as well besides just factory public schooling. Figure 1 in 4 is 14-18 and they might have some part time job, albeit unlikely. There is a fundamental shift to consider, though. A hundred years ago regardless of employment figures most people were farming and by farming that meant the whole family worked together to eat and provide shelter for themselves, and raise enough money to buy that which they cannot provide to themselves.
- gozur88 10y ago
  >We severely undervalue social value for material value, and we're suffering horribly for it. I don't think there's wide agreement on just what constitutes social value once you get down to the detail level.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    It's surprisingly hard.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  I just don't understand "selling all your time and energy." I just don't see that happening. Maybe it's because I've been in all-consuming projects before and a regular 9-5 just seems simple to me now. But even when it was all-consuming, there was plenty of slack time.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  I have had the privilege of working with someone who grew up very poor. But he had a fully intact, loving, extended family, and as a result, he always knew who he was. His family was also relatively high status and that afforded him opportunities for seeing leadership up close. Contrast this to people of affluence I've known who've stopped even having a reflection in the mirror. Their identity just disappeared.
jackmaney 10y ago
> the move towards atheism Care to explain that? Atheism may be growing--in fact, Wikipedia gives an upper bound of the US atheist population at ten percent[0]--but I've never seen anything resembling what I would call an actual cultural movement towards atheism. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#United...
- dean 10y ago
  This also implies that atheists are more likely to commit suicide. Is there evidence to support that?
  - Frozenlock 10y ago
    I don't know; I just listed major societal changes.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    Yes, in fact. This statement as such is still just about correlation, not causation (compare ice cream sales and drowning deaths). But it has been studied. * CONCLUSIONS: Religious affiliation is associated with less suicidal behavior in depressed inpatients. After other factors were controlled, it was found that greater moral objections to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously affiliated subjects may function as protective factors against suicide attempts. Further study about the influence of religious affiliation on aggressive behavior and how moral objections can reduce the probability of acting on suicidal thoughts may offer new therapeutic strategies in suicide prevention.* http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.12.2303 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.161...
    - padobson 10y ago
      It makes sense to me. A religious person in pain without hope looks at suicide as an option and thinks, "I've got it bad now, but it's only going to get worse if I do this..." Whereas a non-religious person is thinking, "I've got it bad now, but if I do this I won't have to feel anything ever again"
gozur88 10y ago
This. The root of the problem isn't economic - the culture is broken.
- datalus 10y ago
  It can also be both economic & cultural... Like a lot of things, it's much more subtle and complicated. If it wasn't, we'd have solved it by now.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    I don't think there's much of an economic component. If you look at the numbers, people aren't doing badly by historical standards.
    - Futurebot 10y ago
      Relative poverty is what is at issue, and it's associated with suicide: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12998/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12998/a... Economic turmoil in general is linked to suicide: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27796628 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27796628
    - k-mcgrady 10y ago
      >> "I don't think there's much of an economic component. If you look at the numbers, people aren't doing badly by historical standards." What numbers are you looking at though? If you look at income inequality there has been a significant increase in the last few decades.
      - gozur88 10y ago
        Income inequality is a political problem. Nobody shoots himself because a person he doesn't know makes a lot more money. But he will shoot himself when his wife divorces him and takes his children.
        10y ago
jklinger410 10y ago
Capitalism literally defines America. In every comment thread about this news I see capitalism referred to as the probable cause. You can look all you'd like if you want to be thorough, but I feel like you will discover what everyone already knows.
- xiphias 10y ago
  Almost 0% interest rate is not capitalism. In capitalism you need capital that you have from your hard work to start a successful company. With the current climate you just need better banking connections then your competitor.
  - jklinger410 10y ago
    Crony capitalism is the status of modern capitalism.

twoquestions 10y ago

I agree with you that capitalism alone doesn't increase suicide, but needing to sell all of your time/energy to keep a roof over your head and food in your mouth and still being told you're not good enough is depressing as all hell. We severely undervalue social value for material value, and we're suffering horribly for it.

leaveyou 10y ago
I upvoted both of you but you seem to contradict each other.. now I start to question my clarity. I think capitalism became very good at optimizing for profit and it pushes aside faster than ever anything that stays in it's path (and now that's more and more people). >We severely undervalue social value for material value Unfortunately the market has spoken: material value.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > Unfortunately the market has spoken: material value. Society is what we make of it. We still have a choice. Also, kudos to everyone up the chain in this subthread; this is the discourse I expect when coming to HN.
- deepnet 10y ago
  > the market has spoken: The extent that the market is a free market is much debated.
  - leaveyou 10y ago
    I should have used quotes (") around market but I already used my quota of quotes today..
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  "Underlying social value" is oh so much harder to measure. whose social; whose value?
maratd 10y ago
> needing to sell all of your time/energy to keep a roof over your head and food in your mouth and still being told you're not good enough is depressing as all hell. This is how it's always been. So that doesn't hold water. I think the problem is, and you touched on this in your original comment, is that some people don't get a chance to "sell their time/energy". The unemployment numbers being quoted everywhere are a joke. Those numbers exclude discouraged workers who exit the economy and those people are the likeliest to off themselves.
- jonhinson 10y ago
  The U-4 (unemployed + discouraged workers) for March was 5.3% as opposed to the U-3 (unemployed) of 5% [1]. 1. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
  - thatcat 10y ago
    Hm, I wonder how they hack these numbers together. I just made up my own unemployment metric, absolute unemployment. A-U = Population - Employees. For US. A-U = 308 mil. - 140 mil.(1) which suggests there is about 55% of the population who are not currently employed. So, A-U - U-4 = the approximately 50% of the population who don't need jobs I guess. 1.http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001 http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
    - zanny 10y ago
      Population in that case includes children and the retired. Albeit, I hate using the phrase "retired" here. Retired for most simply means the equivalent of someone being born into wealth retiring at age 0. Anyway, there are around 75 million kids, so real figures are something like 40% unemployed. But a lot of people are working under the table, no longer in classical employment, etc. Though hopefully the kids are also doing something as well besides just factory public schooling. Figure 1 in 4 is 14-18 and they might have some part time job, albeit unlikely. There is a fundamental shift to consider, though. A hundred years ago regardless of employment figures most people were farming and by farming that meant the whole family worked together to eat and provide shelter for themselves, and raise enough money to buy that which they cannot provide to themselves.
gozur88 10y ago
>We severely undervalue social value for material value, and we're suffering horribly for it. I don't think there's wide agreement on just what constitutes social value once you get down to the detail level.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  It's surprisingly hard.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
I just don't understand "selling all your time and energy." I just don't see that happening. Maybe it's because I've been in all-consuming projects before and a regular 9-5 just seems simple to me now. But even when it was all-consuming, there was plenty of slack time.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
I have had the privilege of working with someone who grew up very poor. But he had a fully intact, loving, extended family, and as a result, he always knew who he was. His family was also relatively high status and that afforded him opportunities for seeing leadership up close. Contrast this to people of affluence I've known who've stopped even having a reflection in the mirror. Their identity just disappeared.

jackmaney 10y ago

> the move towards atheism Care to explain that? Atheism may be growing--in fact, Wikipedia gives an upper bound of the US atheist population at ten percent[0]--but I've never seen anything resembling what I would call an actual cultural movement towards atheism. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#United...

dean 10y ago
This also implies that atheists are more likely to commit suicide. Is there evidence to support that?
- Frozenlock 10y ago
  I don't know; I just listed major societal changes.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Yes, in fact. This statement as such is still just about correlation, not causation (compare ice cream sales and drowning deaths). But it has been studied. * CONCLUSIONS: Religious affiliation is associated with less suicidal behavior in depressed inpatients. After other factors were controlled, it was found that greater moral objections to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously affiliated subjects may function as protective factors against suicide attempts. Further study about the influence of religious affiliation on aggressive behavior and how moral objections can reduce the probability of acting on suicidal thoughts may offer new therapeutic strategies in suicide prevention.* http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.12.2303 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.161...
  - padobson 10y ago
    It makes sense to me. A religious person in pain without hope looks at suicide as an option and thinks, "I've got it bad now, but it's only going to get worse if I do this..." Whereas a non-religious person is thinking, "I've got it bad now, but if I do this I won't have to feel anything ever again"

gozur88 10y ago

This. The root of the problem isn't economic - the culture is broken.

datalus 10y ago
It can also be both economic & cultural... Like a lot of things, it's much more subtle and complicated. If it wasn't, we'd have solved it by now.
- gozur88 10y ago
  I don't think there's much of an economic component. If you look at the numbers, people aren't doing badly by historical standards.
  - Futurebot 10y ago
    Relative poverty is what is at issue, and it's associated with suicide: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12998/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12998/a... Economic turmoil in general is linked to suicide: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27796628 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27796628
  - k-mcgrady 10y ago
    >> "I don't think there's much of an economic component. If you look at the numbers, people aren't doing badly by historical standards." What numbers are you looking at though? If you look at income inequality there has been a significant increase in the last few decades.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      Income inequality is a political problem. Nobody shoots himself because a person he doesn't know makes a lot more money. But he will shoot himself when his wife divorces him and takes his children.
      - 10y ago

jklinger410 10y ago

Capitalism literally defines America. In every comment thread about this news I see capitalism referred to as the probable cause. You can look all you'd like if you want to be thorough, but I feel like you will discover what everyone already knows.

xiphias 10y ago
Almost 0% interest rate is not capitalism. In capitalism you need capital that you have from your hard work to start a successful company. With the current climate you just need better banking connections then your competitor.
- jklinger410 10y ago
  Crony capitalism is the status of modern capitalism.