5 ms·

This comment is romanticised nonsense which is consistently opposed by research. Suicide rates are strongly linked to socioeconomic status. Being in the 1st de

• Alex3917 6y ago
  > This comment is romanticised nonsense which is consistently opposed by research. Suicide rates fluctuate wildly over time though, so trying to understand suicide by looking at relative rates within a given year is going to give you at best an incomplete picture.
• slibhb 6y ago
  It's not nonsense. Your source concerns South Korea, an industrialized country with a high suicide rate. Take a look at all countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... Suicide is not mainly determined by absolute poverty. That doesn't mean that socioeconomic factors or financial ruin are irrelevant but it questions the idea that suicide is mainly about material circumstances.
  • pmiller2 6y ago
    What makes you think you can compare across countries? Why do you think "absolute" poverty is important? My buying power isn't materially reduced simply because another country might have a higher per capita income than the one I live in.
    • slibhb 6y ago
      If you want to ask the question "what causes suicide?" you have to generalize. It seems strange to suggest that you can't generalize between countries. You might as well say "how can you compare Tim's suicide to Susan's suicide, they lived totally different lives". Are we only allowed to compare suicides in twin studies? It's plausible that absolute poverty would be the main factor in suicide, i.e. privation and resulting suffering would drive people to suicide. Though plausible, that doesn't seem to be the case, which is interesting. Glancing at the data on wikipedia, there seem to be cultural and religious factors at play here that dwarf economic factors (not to mention sex...). Muslim countries have low rates of suicide. Japan and Korea have high rates of suicide. It's totally fine to look for correlations along economic lines but that's a lot more to the story and it isn't wrong to bring that up.
      • pmiller2 6y ago
        Why does it seem strange to suggest one can't generalize across countries? What does the life of the average American have in common with the life of the average Saudi Arabian or Chinese person, for instance? As far as poverty goes, I don't see any reason at all that absolute poverty should mean anything. Again, my buying power isn't materially affected by that of people in Europe, for instance, but my buying power certainly has a huge absolute effect on my quality of life. I would expect the effect of poverty on suicide rates to be stronger per country than worldwide for this reason, and also that what is considered poor in the United States would be unimaginably rich in some countries. And, those cultural factors are precisely what makes it difficult to compare across countries. The amount of statistical adjustment you'd have to do to compare across even 10 countries would probably swamp most of the non-cultural effects is my guess.
        • slibhb 6y ago
          > Why does it seem strange to suggest one can't generalize across countries? What does the life of the average American have in common with the life of the average Saudi Arabian or Chinese person, for instance? Uh, they're all humans? > As far as poverty goes, I don't see any reason at all that absolute poverty should mean anything. Again, my buying power isn't materially affected by that of people in Europe, for instance, but my buying power certainly has a huge absolute effect on my quality of life. I would expect the effect of poverty on suicide rates to be stronger per country than worldwide for this reason, and also that what is considered poor in the United States would be unimaginably rich in some countries. If you don't think it's plausible that abject suffering would lead someone to suicide I don't know what to say. You only want to talk about "purchasing power" but my whole point is that there are lots of other factors. You can talk about purchasing power but you shouldn't dismiss people talking about those other factors. > And, those cultural factors are precisely what makes it difficult to compare across countries. The amount of statistical adjustment you'd have to do to compare across even 10 countries would probably swamp most of the non-cultural effects is my guess. ...and personality differences make it difficult to compare across individual humans. None of these studies are controlling for all relevant factors, most of which are probably unknown or at least unmeasured.
  • teachingassist 6y ago
    The parent comment clearly references relative poverty, within one individual and therefore within one country. Science is imperfect. If you don't like the results that science has told us, you can claim the opposite and you can believe the opposite, citing exceptions, as you have done. But, that doesn't make the opposite true. You can provide your evidence also (in my personal opinion, a link to Wikipedia doesn't count as evidence).
• jjcon 6y ago
  Looking at a single country when this is more about first world vs third world is hardly useful or scientific