3 ms·

>>How should I view a falling rate of suicide but rising rate of suicide attempts? Badly. People dying to suicide is not good, but like any cause of death, it'

by moate 5y ago

>>How should I view a falling rate of suicide but rising rate of suicide attempts? Badly. People dying to suicide is not good, but like any cause of death, it's going to happen. I think the bigger picture of overall degradation in mental health is a worse indicator than the deaths of people's quality of life. Personally I think you address the overall underlying issues, which would lead to lower death rates. If we heard that deaths from car accidents was down but the number of accidents was way up, we'd want to do something to address it because clearly there's a problem.

whimsicalism 5y ago
> If we heard that deaths from car accidents was down but the number of accidents was way up, we'd want to do something to address it because clearly there's a problem. Yes, but it would be much better than the flip side scenario of way more people dying but fewer accidents, no? Indeed, I would argue it's better than the same number of people dying as before and the same number of accidents.
- moate 5y ago
  If "number of dead people" is the only metric we care about, yes, you're 100% right. But that's not the only thing that matters. I don't want to keep going down the car rabbit hole, so to bring it back to suicide: increased rates of mental distress (as indicated by higher incidences of suicidal ideation) is very bad. This would likely mean several other things which are damaging to both the individuals and society (loss of income, additional expenses from medical treatment, possible run ins with criminal or psychological incarceration) As with most things, there's no "magic metric" when it comes to mental health relating to suicide that we could say "if we can get this down to 0 everything is fixed".
- Hiopl 5y ago
  I'm glad I don't matter to you as long as I haven't yet killed myself. I'll try to keep that in mind while I'm dying inside and dealing with severe depression.

by moate 5y ago

whimsicalism 5y ago

> If we heard that deaths from car accidents was down but the number of accidents was way up, we'd want to do something to address it because clearly there's a problem. Yes, but it would be much better than the flip side scenario of way more people dying but fewer accidents, no? Indeed, I would argue it's better than the same number of people dying as before and the same number of accidents.

moate 5y ago
If "number of dead people" is the only metric we care about, yes, you're 100% right. But that's not the only thing that matters. I don't want to keep going down the car rabbit hole, so to bring it back to suicide: increased rates of mental distress (as indicated by higher incidences of suicidal ideation) is very bad. This would likely mean several other things which are damaging to both the individuals and society (loss of income, additional expenses from medical treatment, possible run ins with criminal or psychological incarceration) As with most things, there's no "magic metric" when it comes to mental health relating to suicide that we could say "if we can get this down to 0 everything is fixed".
Hiopl 5y ago
I'm glad I don't matter to you as long as I haven't yet killed myself. I'll try to keep that in mind while I'm dying inside and dealing with severe depression.