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I live in a developing country. People regularly kill animals to eat. They will have chickens, ducks, rats, fish, turtles, dogs, and pigs that they raise and ea

I live in a developing country. People regularly kill animals to eat. They will have chickens, ducks, rats, fish, turtles, dogs, and pigs that they raise and eat. There is no "communing with nature". There is no "paying the blood price". There is certainly no "greater love and understanding of nature" or "meaning in their lives". It is just eating, living, surviving.

hirundo 8y ago
Suicide rates tend to be lower in developing countries. Don't you think that lifestyle is part of the reason? https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/535557fc6bb3f78245a35752-750-308.jpg https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/535557fc6bb3f78245a35...
- edanm 8y ago
  And you think this is the only lifestyle difference between the countries? There are millions of confounding variables.
- Swizec 8y ago
  To quote a smart person I know: “Yeah, sure, you could give up, but then who’s gonna feed the kids?” When your life is hand to mouth, there’s not a lot of room left for suicidal stuff. Too busy surviving. Especially if there’s people depending on you. Even if you’re suicidal, you don’t have the luxury to go through with it. And even if you’re depressed, you don’t have the luxury to give into it. Because if you do, then you don’t eat and neither do yiur kids. No choice but to keep going. Life’s fun like that.
  - ianai 8y ago
    Or, such places handle social interaction better. Birth rates decline in developed areas. My pet hypothesis is that “developed” countries/areas are only developed through extracting so much from workers that only a selected subset may reproduce.
    - eigenstuff 8y ago
      Or, y'know, developed countries have more access to birth control...
      - k__ 8y ago
        I think this js the main reason. Most people here get children unplanned and the minority of them are rich.
      - ianai 8y ago
        You’re pointing out the mechanism. I’m talking about why people choose to not have children. This is not a disagreement.
        vertex-four 8y ago
        The point of your parent comment is that the people in the developing world might also choose not to have children if they had realistic access to birth control - thus making the “why” incorrect. It could just be that having kids isn’t actually worth it.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - ameister14 8y ago
        It's not only one cause - declining TFR has to do with a ton of different things, access to birth control being one of them but far from the only one.
    - freddie_mercury 8y ago
      Birth rates decline because of female education. This is such an established fact that your pet theory sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory "the moon landings were faked".
      - ianai 8y ago
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Don't you think that lifestyle is part of the reason? Or lifespan. Cancer rates are also really low in many super-impoverished countries. Few survive long enough to get it.
  - pen2l 8y ago
    A low caloric diet prevents cancer. “Eat less and you won’t get cancer.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829867/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829867/
- Razengan 8y ago
  I have noticed that too and I think it one reason may be that once you're freed from the "carnal" struggles of basic day-to-day survival, you tend to run into existential dread sooner or later and question the pointlessness of it all. The struggles of developing countries are just another form of the distractions that people need to keep themselves from nurturing suicidal thoughts.

hirundo 8y ago

Suicide rates tend to be lower in developing countries. Don't you think that lifestyle is part of the reason? https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/535557fc6bb3f78245a35752-750-308.jpg https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/535557fc6bb3f78245a35...

edanm 8y ago
And you think this is the only lifestyle difference between the countries? There are millions of confounding variables.
Swizec 8y ago
To quote a smart person I know: “Yeah, sure, you could give up, but then who’s gonna feed the kids?” When your life is hand to mouth, there’s not a lot of room left for suicidal stuff. Too busy surviving. Especially if there’s people depending on you. Even if you’re suicidal, you don’t have the luxury to go through with it. And even if you’re depressed, you don’t have the luxury to give into it. Because if you do, then you don’t eat and neither do yiur kids. No choice but to keep going. Life’s fun like that.
- ianai 8y ago
  Or, such places handle social interaction better. Birth rates decline in developed areas. My pet hypothesis is that “developed” countries/areas are only developed through extracting so much from workers that only a selected subset may reproduce.
  - eigenstuff 8y ago
    Or, y'know, developed countries have more access to birth control...
    - k__ 8y ago
      I think this js the main reason. Most people here get children unplanned and the minority of them are rich.
    - ianai 8y ago
      You’re pointing out the mechanism. I’m talking about why people choose to not have children. This is not a disagreement.
      - vertex-four 8y ago
        The point of your parent comment is that the people in the developing world might also choose not to have children if they had realistic access to birth control - thus making the “why” incorrect. It could just be that having kids isn’t actually worth it.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - ameister14 8y ago
      It's not only one cause - declining TFR has to do with a ton of different things, access to birth control being one of them but far from the only one.
  - freddie_mercury 8y ago
    Birth rates decline because of female education. This is such an established fact that your pet theory sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory "the moon landings were faked".
    - ianai 8y ago
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Don't you think that lifestyle is part of the reason? Or lifespan. Cancer rates are also really low in many super-impoverished countries. Few survive long enough to get it.
- pen2l 8y ago
  A low caloric diet prevents cancer. “Eat less and you won’t get cancer.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829867/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829867/
Razengan 8y ago
I have noticed that too and I think it one reason may be that once you're freed from the "carnal" struggles of basic day-to-day survival, you tend to run into existential dread sooner or later and question the pointlessness of it all. The struggles of developing countries are just another form of the distractions that people need to keep themselves from nurturing suicidal thoughts.