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The relationship between depression and suicide with age is just correlation not causation, so it's silly to draw a line there and assume they are connected --

by ebbv 10y ago

The relationship between depression and suicide with age is just correlation not causation, so it's silly to draw a line there and assume they are connected -- especially since we know depressed people have a higher suicide rate than people without depression. I think this post is an attempt to make an obvious question seem like it has deep or non-obvious answers; but in reality I think the answers are pretty obvious. Most people don't kill themselves because they don't want to. It's that simple. It's like asking "Why don't more humans become ballet dancers?" Some try and fail but most just don't want to. If the question is really; why don't more people want to kill themselves, then the answer is going to vary person by person and be difficult if not impossible to answer globally. Bob might not have any thoughts of suicide at all but Alice might think about it but want to see her nephew grow up and not inflict that pain on her parents. Truly answering that question would involve a really comprehensive study of a lot of different groups to even attempt to answer it.

pritambaral 10y ago
The paper does not draw a causation, nor does the article. The paper asks a question, and the article tries to think along the lines of the question and asks some more. ---- > I think the answers are pretty obvious. Most people don't kill themselves because they don't want to. That is a simple conclusion, indeed; and it's not wrong either. The article tries to reason how that conclusion came to be. People who have had suicidal thoughts but didn't go through with it did ultimately not want to do it, but before that decision they did want to, by definition of 'suicidal people'. The article – inspired by the paper – opens with the premise that 'pain' and 'human cognition' alone should make a human want to 'give up' upon the slightest inconvenience, and then goes on to try and come up with other factors — like your Alice wanting to see her nephew grow up or not wanting to inflict pain on her parents — that prevent 'pain and brain' from having their way uncontested.
- Jedd 10y ago
  > The paper does not draw a causation, nor does the article. It does draw a conclusion: > Indeed, there appears to be a slight elevated risk > of suicide in people taking some antidepressants, > especially young people. But the effect is tiny. > And some people do think antidepressants relieve > suffering. If depression caused suicide, treating > depression should reduce suicide rates, but of > course it hasn’t. This could be due to the > ineffectiveness of treatment, however. If depression caused suicide, treating depressing should reduce suicide rates ... BUT ... that assumes we identify and 'rectify' all depression, and that the only cause of suicide is depression, and that the only metric of success for treatment of depression is a reduction in suicide (across the board) ... and if you adopt those three positions then the numbers start to make sense. 'But of course' this isn't the whole story.
  - patall 10y ago
    Exactly. Treating the symptoms does not mean treating the cause and might even enhance it.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    That is not causation, is it?
mabcat 10y ago
I think your comment has blurred some distinctions that the post takes care to pull apart. Every human inevitably suffers and has reason to commit suicide, so why don't they all want to? Many more people want to commit suicide than do commit suicide, so why is that? The reasons that you posited for Alice not killing herself were among many mentioned in the post.
bitshiffed 10y ago
I think the post is very interesting, and not completely obvious. It's not as much about people deciding whether or not to commit suicide; it is, that all of the benefits of intelligence also come with one potentially huge evolutionary problem, suicide. Given that any natural variance in likelihood to commit suicide should be very heavily selected for or against, what adaptations might we have that were picked up to decrease it's likelihood? The idea in the post is that some mental illnesses may be connected to these adaptations.

by ebbv 10y ago

pritambaral 10y ago

The paper does not draw a causation, nor does the article. The paper asks a question, and the article tries to think along the lines of the question and asks some more. ---- > I think the answers are pretty obvious. Most people don't kill themselves because they don't want to. That is a simple conclusion, indeed; and it's not wrong either. The article tries to reason how that conclusion came to be. People who have had suicidal thoughts but didn't go through with it did ultimately not want to do it, but before that decision they did want to, by definition of 'suicidal people'. The article – inspired by the paper – opens with the premise that 'pain' and 'human cognition' alone should make a human want to 'give up' upon the slightest inconvenience, and then goes on to try and come up with other factors — like your Alice wanting to see her nephew grow up or not wanting to inflict pain on her parents — that prevent 'pain and brain' from having their way uncontested.

Jedd 10y ago
> The paper does not draw a causation, nor does the article. It does draw a conclusion: > Indeed, there appears to be a slight elevated risk > of suicide in people taking some antidepressants, > especially young people. But the effect is tiny. > And some people do think antidepressants relieve > suffering. If depression caused suicide, treating > depression should reduce suicide rates, but of > course it hasn’t. This could be due to the > ineffectiveness of treatment, however. If depression caused suicide, treating depressing should reduce suicide rates ... BUT ... that assumes we identify and 'rectify' all depression, and that the only cause of suicide is depression, and that the only metric of success for treatment of depression is a reduction in suicide (across the board) ... and if you adopt those three positions then the numbers start to make sense. 'But of course' this isn't the whole story.
- patall 10y ago
  Exactly. Treating the symptoms does not mean treating the cause and might even enhance it.
- pritambaral 10y ago
  That is not causation, is it?

mabcat 10y ago

I think your comment has blurred some distinctions that the post takes care to pull apart. Every human inevitably suffers and has reason to commit suicide, so why don't they all want to? Many more people want to commit suicide than do commit suicide, so why is that? The reasons that you posited for Alice not killing herself were among many mentioned in the post.

bitshiffed 10y ago

I think the post is very interesting, and not completely obvious. It's not as much about people deciding whether or not to commit suicide; it is, that all of the benefits of intelligence also come with one potentially huge evolutionary problem, suicide. Given that any natural variance in likelihood to commit suicide should be very heavily selected for or against, what adaptations might we have that were picked up to decrease it's likelihood? The idea in the post is that some mental illnesses may be connected to these adaptations.