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Thomas D from Brooklyn said it best... "I find this essay to be incredibly simplistic. You blame the increased suicide rate on the diminished role of religion

Thomas D from Brooklyn said it best... "I find this essay to be incredibly simplistic. You blame the increased suicide rate on the diminished role of religion in our lives and a lack of “neighborliness” with our neighbors? Really? Just off the top of my head, here are a short list of factors you did not consider: - The worst income inequality our country’s seen in a CENTURY. - Most Americans — and statistics back this up — dislike or literally hate their jobs... Which they find meaningless. - Millions are working 2 and even 3 jobs on starvation wages. - Millions of Americans are overwhelmed with student debt. - Our country has no guaranteed paid parental leave. - Our for-profit health care system leaves millions uncovered — and millions more “covered,” but unable to afford to actually use their coverage. - Unlike all other major countries in the world, we have ZERO guaranteed paid vacation. - We work too much — we work longer hours than almost any other industrialized country. - Because of this sad fact, what time we have left over for leisure and spending time with family and friends is severely limited. - We have a deeply corrupt political system in which all of us recognize that it’s only the super-rich and corporations who get what they want — decade in and decade out. - We live in the Wild, Wild West of “anything goes” for corporations — including raping our environment and monopolizing... resulting in higher bills for us, less innovation, little to no competition and so forth. Need I go on?"

squirrelicus 8y ago
Sure, not a lot of substance here. Easy to disprove most of it. -income inequality is higher but so is standard of living. Moreover, suicidality is pretty strongly inversely correlated with poverty and privilege. If the hypothesis is that people are killing themselves because "wah someone has more numbers than me" the argument crumbles immediately. -most jobs have always been shit and meaningless. Nothing new here expect maybe a generation that was told they were special when they are not. - "2 or 3 jobs" but how many hours? Also, starvation wages? Come on. Nobody in America with a job is poor enough to be hungry. To suggest starvation wage in America devalues actual food scarcity globally. Also, again, poverty and suicidality are inversely correlated - you can thank federally guaranteed student loans and useless majors for driving up the cost and driving down the value of college. Still, having 40k-200k of loans contributing to suicidality... I'd like to see the study. Could be right. - guaranteed parental leave would help reduce suicides? I mean, we didn't have that in the past. So why does the status quo cause higher suicide rates? - the medical services coverage is a strange argument with respect to suicidality. We understand and treat depression way better than we did 50 years ago, so why is it worse now? Plentiful mental health clinics even operate on a "pay what you can" model -paid vacation, see paid parental leave - why wasn't suicide higher when we worked more hours in the past? In the last 50 years as hours worked hasn't really changed, why is suicidality up now and not then? - I mean... Leisure time is still a good 6 hours a workday plus weekends and hasn't really gone down. Why don't people who work more for less commit suicide more often? - this last one doesn't even deserve a response. Please go on. Maybe you'll get a single reason if you do.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  > Nobody in America with a job is poor enough to be hungry. That's an absurdly out-of-touch statement.
  - pandem 8y ago
    I think I heard recently on NPR that an American making minimum wage earns enough to buy 100k kcal per day. (Sorry, no source) If you compare that to countries where people actually starve you should be able to see the difference
    - aardvark291 8y ago
      > earns enough to buy 100k kcal per day Calories alone is a pretty limited view of nutrition. Sure, I could drink vegetable oil or eat donuts for every meal...
    - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
      What about being able to rent or buy a house in addition to feeding yourself? Besides, there's a lot of "jobs" out there right now where minimum wage does not apply - the service industry (where it has to be filled by tips, which are voluntary, but if you don't tip you're both 'stealing' people's wages and will get shit treatment), the "gig economy", etcetera.
- mistermann 8y ago
  I downvoted you, then upvoted you, then unvoted. I think yours and the parent's statement are somehow both mostly correct. I also think there is a bigger point missing, but I'm not sure what it is.
  - squirrelicus 8y ago
    I get it. My post isn't an SF pop culturally appropriate view. And I have my own views on suicidality, the systemic failure of the parents that reared millennials, and the postmodern deconstruction of historical pillars of meaning that human neurology craves. But this isn't the forum to eludcidate those views.
isoskeles 8y ago
Misery and suicide have existed in countries with more and less Socialist economies than ours. The fact that Thomas thinks the solution to these suicides happens to be some utopia version of the DSA platform isn't all that interesting. Just another predictable, the ideology I am opposed to is at fault for all of this.
pandem 8y ago
Sure, most of the things you list are not good. However I don't see anything on the list that has had a drastic change. If you want to know why people commit more suicides now, it would be useful to try to point the what has changed like the article does.
closeparen 8y ago
Sure, those are the left wing talking points. You could just as easily say the right wing ones: - Historically low religious belief and church attendance. - Low rates of marriage, high rates of divorce. - High incidence and tolerance of deviant sexuality, low respect for tradition and traditional gender roles. - Decline of corporal punishment in parenting and education, erosion of fear and respect for authorities and institutions in general. - Influx of outsiders destroying social trust and cohesion. - Lack of personal responsibility. Point is, it's easy to give a laundry list of societal trends which could conceivably affect people's mood, sense of purpose, sense of belonging, etc. But just offering the ones that happen to be your party's platform is not good-faith participation in an effort to actually understand or fix this particular problem. It's just using it as a venue to repeat your ideology.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
marzell 8y ago
I agree with some of your criticism, but also criticize how you have thrown out some off-the-cuff beliefs that I would suggest are not true or irrelevant (not all of them though) and wish I could help participate in further research and collaborative analysis. For instance, you have pointed out several things that are "bad", but haven't necessarily changed or are better overall than they have ever been (hate for meaningless jobs, parental leave, working too much) but you are sometimes comparing current US against other countries, not looking at the fact that these are still on generally positive trends historically. Some things that might be less-or-irrelevant include: -Inequality: Yes this is true, but the poorest people are better off and there are fewer of them than there have been historically. Many people considered poor these days have cell phones, can afford nutritious meals (even if they don't eat them) and have access to welfare and disability that wasn't available 100 years ago. -Leisure time: On average, people are spending 20+ less hours a week working than they did 100 years ago, and spend far less time doing household chores. While there is certainly cause for concern and much more progress to be made, overall things are on a positive trend, and most of your arguments only compare against other countries at the current time -- I don't get a sense that this is a major cause of suicide increases. I also would like to learn more about how the statistics were derived. Are they using the same definition of suicide? Are there other factors? For instance, if someone overdoses on opiates and dies from it, is that considered suicide according to these statistics? I'm not flat-out disagreeing with you, but rather I would like to better understand which factors are most influential and also what exactly it is they are reporting -- the source material didn't seem to specify whether they were reporting % increases as an absolute number or number of suicides per 100k people, etc. Steven Pinker's newest book, Enlightenment Now, touches on this topic, and explores statistics and some considerations for what may or may not be influential factors for recent trends in suicide, as well as pretty much every bullet point you provided.
- JDiculous 8y ago
  This article is talking about suicides being up 25% from 1999 until now, not 100 years ago. Inequality certainly plays a role in happiness, whether rational or not. Inequality in the U.S. has been on the uptrend. Sure welfare didn't exist 100 years ago, but 22 years ago welfare was reformed to put time limits and require work eligibility. Certainly not what I would consider an uptrend from then.
dnomad 8y ago
Not sure why you give credit to politicians. Politicians are not smart enough to engineer this. This is completely the genius of capitalism. The reality is there are millions of people out there who cannot meaningfully contribute to the modern global economy. You can see this very clearly in the rapidly declining labor force [1]. All of this excess labor has to go. We need to get rid these people as fast as possible because they are literally a huge drag (on growth) and they are making us all poorer. But how? The free market to the rescue! No need for government thugs or complicated, expensive social engineering campaigns. The free market can precisely target this excess labor and liquidate it with just the right price signals. The results speak for themselves: suicides are up 30%, birth rates are the lowest they've been in 30 years [2] and we are finally seeing significant declines in life expectancy [3]. All of this is happening while corporate profits are soaring to new heights and the economy is actually growing! [4] You think politicians could be this effective? [1] https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/econrev/econrevarchive/2018/1q18tuzemen.pdf https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/econrev... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44151642 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44151642 [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/life-expectancy/548981/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/life-expe... [4] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/28/corporate-profits-highest-in-seven-years-but-that-may-not-help-stocks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/28/corporate-profits-highest-in...

squirrelicus 8y ago

Sure, not a lot of substance here. Easy to disprove most of it. -income inequality is higher but so is standard of living. Moreover, suicidality is pretty strongly inversely correlated with poverty and privilege. If the hypothesis is that people are killing themselves because "wah someone has more numbers than me" the argument crumbles immediately. -most jobs have always been shit and meaningless. Nothing new here expect maybe a generation that was told they were special when they are not. - "2 or 3 jobs" but how many hours? Also, starvation wages? Come on. Nobody in America with a job is poor enough to be hungry. To suggest starvation wage in America devalues actual food scarcity globally. Also, again, poverty and suicidality are inversely correlated - you can thank federally guaranteed student loans and useless majors for driving up the cost and driving down the value of college. Still, having 40k-200k of loans contributing to suicidality... I'd like to see the study. Could be right. - guaranteed parental leave would help reduce suicides? I mean, we didn't have that in the past. So why does the status quo cause higher suicide rates? - the medical services coverage is a strange argument with respect to suicidality. We understand and treat depression way better than we did 50 years ago, so why is it worse now? Plentiful mental health clinics even operate on a "pay what you can" model -paid vacation, see paid parental leave - why wasn't suicide higher when we worked more hours in the past? In the last 50 years as hours worked hasn't really changed, why is suicidality up now and not then? - I mean... Leisure time is still a good 6 hours a workday plus weekends and hasn't really gone down. Why don't people who work more for less commit suicide more often? - this last one doesn't even deserve a response. Please go on. Maybe you'll get a single reason if you do.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
King-Aaron 8y ago
> Nobody in America with a job is poor enough to be hungry. That's an absurdly out-of-touch statement.
- pandem 8y ago
  I think I heard recently on NPR that an American making minimum wage earns enough to buy 100k kcal per day. (Sorry, no source) If you compare that to countries where people actually starve you should be able to see the difference
  - aardvark291 8y ago
    > earns enough to buy 100k kcal per day Calories alone is a pretty limited view of nutrition. Sure, I could drink vegetable oil or eat donuts for every meal...
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    What about being able to rent or buy a house in addition to feeding yourself? Besides, there's a lot of "jobs" out there right now where minimum wage does not apply - the service industry (where it has to be filled by tips, which are voluntary, but if you don't tip you're both 'stealing' people's wages and will get shit treatment), the "gig economy", etcetera.
mistermann 8y ago
I downvoted you, then upvoted you, then unvoted. I think yours and the parent's statement are somehow both mostly correct. I also think there is a bigger point missing, but I'm not sure what it is.
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  I get it. My post isn't an SF pop culturally appropriate view. And I have my own views on suicidality, the systemic failure of the parents that reared millennials, and the postmodern deconstruction of historical pillars of meaning that human neurology craves. But this isn't the forum to eludcidate those views.

isoskeles 8y ago

Misery and suicide have existed in countries with more and less Socialist economies than ours. The fact that Thomas thinks the solution to these suicides happens to be some utopia version of the DSA platform isn't all that interesting. Just another predictable, the ideology I am opposed to is at fault for all of this.

pandem 8y ago

Sure, most of the things you list are not good. However I don't see anything on the list that has had a drastic change. If you want to know why people commit more suicides now, it would be useful to try to point the what has changed like the article does.

closeparen 8y ago

Sure, those are the left wing talking points. You could just as easily say the right wing ones: - Historically low religious belief and church attendance. - Low rates of marriage, high rates of divorce. - High incidence and tolerance of deviant sexuality, low respect for tradition and traditional gender roles. - Decline of corporal punishment in parenting and education, erosion of fear and respect for authorities and institutions in general. - Influx of outsiders destroying social trust and cohesion. - Lack of personal responsibility. Point is, it's easy to give a laundry list of societal trends which could conceivably affect people's mood, sense of purpose, sense of belonging, etc. But just offering the ones that happen to be your party's platform is not good-faith participation in an effort to actually understand or fix this particular problem. It's just using it as a venue to repeat your ideology.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

marzell 8y ago

I agree with some of your criticism, but also criticize how you have thrown out some off-the-cuff beliefs that I would suggest are not true or irrelevant (not all of them though) and wish I could help participate in further research and collaborative analysis. For instance, you have pointed out several things that are "bad", but haven't necessarily changed or are better overall than they have ever been (hate for meaningless jobs, parental leave, working too much) but you are sometimes comparing current US against other countries, not looking at the fact that these are still on generally positive trends historically. Some things that might be less-or-irrelevant include: -Inequality: Yes this is true, but the poorest people are better off and there are fewer of them than there have been historically. Many people considered poor these days have cell phones, can afford nutritious meals (even if they don't eat them) and have access to welfare and disability that wasn't available 100 years ago. -Leisure time: On average, people are spending 20+ less hours a week working than they did 100 years ago, and spend far less time doing household chores. While there is certainly cause for concern and much more progress to be made, overall things are on a positive trend, and most of your arguments only compare against other countries at the current time -- I don't get a sense that this is a major cause of suicide increases. I also would like to learn more about how the statistics were derived. Are they using the same definition of suicide? Are there other factors? For instance, if someone overdoses on opiates and dies from it, is that considered suicide according to these statistics? I'm not flat-out disagreeing with you, but rather I would like to better understand which factors are most influential and also what exactly it is they are reporting -- the source material didn't seem to specify whether they were reporting % increases as an absolute number or number of suicides per 100k people, etc. Steven Pinker's newest book, Enlightenment Now, touches on this topic, and explores statistics and some considerations for what may or may not be influential factors for recent trends in suicide, as well as pretty much every bullet point you provided.

JDiculous 8y ago
This article is talking about suicides being up 25% from 1999 until now, not 100 years ago. Inequality certainly plays a role in happiness, whether rational or not. Inequality in the U.S. has been on the uptrend. Sure welfare didn't exist 100 years ago, but 22 years ago welfare was reformed to put time limits and require work eligibility. Certainly not what I would consider an uptrend from then.

dnomad 8y ago

Not sure why you give credit to politicians. Politicians are not smart enough to engineer this. This is completely the genius of capitalism. The reality is there are millions of people out there who cannot meaningfully contribute to the modern global economy. You can see this very clearly in the rapidly declining labor force [1]. All of this excess labor has to go. We need to get rid these people as fast as possible because they are literally a huge drag (on growth) and they are making us all poorer. But how? The free market to the rescue! No need for government thugs or complicated, expensive social engineering campaigns. The free market can precisely target this excess labor and liquidate it with just the right price signals. The results speak for themselves: suicides are up 30%, birth rates are the lowest they've been in 30 years [2] and we are finally seeing significant declines in life expectancy [3]. All of this is happening while corporate profits are soaring to new heights and the economy is actually growing! [4] You think politicians could be this effective? [1] https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/econrev/econrevarchive/2018/1q18tuzemen.pdf https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/econrev... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44151642 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44151642 [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/life-expectancy/548981/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/life-expe... [4] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/28/corporate-profits-highest-in-seven-years-but-that-may-not-help-stocks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/28/corporate-profits-highest-in...