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Per-country data on suicides should be treated skeptically because most cultures have a strong aversion to suicide and listing cause of death as suicide. Many

Per-country data on suicides should be treated skeptically because most cultures have a strong aversion to suicide and listing cause of death as suicide. Many are classified as accidents and authorities are generally fine with this. Additionally, suicides are usually not reported by the media to prevent copycat suicides. What I'm saying is that the "actual rate" of suicides is probably higher, maybe by a lot, in many countries than the official rate.

tsimionescu 5y ago
Absolutely. Just to add to your examples of why soluicide is systematically under-reported in certain countries, in many Eastern Orthodox countries (Eastern Europe, Russia, Greece), suicide is considered a mortal sin and victims of suicide are denied burial in religious cemeteries (and denied normal religious burial rights) by the church.
- ed_balls 5y ago
  > denied burial in religious cemeteries Same for Catholics and most of Christians, hence no suicide attacks.
  - lazyasciiart 5y ago
    That hasn't been true since the 1960's, in the case of Catholics. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-catholic-churchs-own-complicated-history-with-suicide https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-catholic-churchs-own-compl...
    - ed_balls 5y ago
      but the stigma is still there.
- maxgashkov 5y ago
  Not only that, but in Russia you may be slapped with the fine for the 'propaganda of suicide' (I shit you not it's the real law) if you even discuss suicide on more or less popular platform.
yyy888sss 5y ago
Strongly agree. Recently an important religious leader in my town died, and the police stated it was accident though they had clear evidence it was suicide because they knew it would distress the public less.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wyager 5y ago
I’ve heard that Japan will classify murder-suicide deaths as suicide deaths, because their word for “suicide” actually has a slightly different denotation.
- gfody 5y ago
  similarly how eskimos have a bunch of words for "snow", and new yorkers have a bunch of words for "pizza", japanese have a bunch of words for "suicide"
- naniwaduni 5y ago
  Are murder-suicides not classed as suicides outside of Japan?
  - wyager 5y ago
    The people who get killed are not counted as suicide deaths in most countries.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
Pretty much all fatal single-car accidents are suicides, IIRC. Cops play nice with the grieving family so they can get their life insurance benefits.
- rscnt 5y ago
  Do you have sources for this? Here in El Salvador we have highways without lamps, streets that drivers treat as highways, crosswalk where you cannot longer see the painting. I guess you're referring to the U.S., right?
- gfody 5y ago
  are you counting unintentional like falling asleep behind the wheel?
- wahern 5y ago
  In much (most? all?) of the United States, life insurance contracts generally cover suicide, except that individual policies will typically have 2-3 year exclusion period. My individual term life policy has a 2-year exclusion period, but otherwise covers suicide. I can't track down the precise reasons for this, whether its related to case law, state statutes, etc. Closest hit I found for California was Insurance Code § 11066(h), but that's for policies issued by fraternal societies. (It probably echoes some other statute or case law.) There are endless Google hits from law and insurance web sites stating this general fact.
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  That's completely false. Among many other factors, about 50% of single-car crashes involve passengers, which would imply a disturbingly high number of murder-suicides.
  - radicaldreamer 5y ago
    I think maybe OP meant single passenger car accident
    - 5y ago
KennyBlanken 5y ago
Even if the absolute number is wrong (which it isn't, necessarily), the relative trend is dramatically upward, and the biases you describe wouldn't appear to account for such a trend. > The results show a record-high 415 children killed themselves in the year through March. That's up nearly 100 from the previous school year. I believe this is mirrored in other countries. The pandemic really hasn't been great for a lot of middle/high school kids. Also: please be mindful that generally if some "obvious fault" occurs to you, it probably occurs to the people for whom this is their professional area of expertise or even life's work, their work has likely been reviewed by a number of their peers, etc. Internet discussion forum commenters are highly unlikely to be the first person to think of some flaw in their work. I'm not saying they always will do said correction, but that if you're going to be skeptical, check to see if the correction was made instead of just dismissing or discounting the data, and be especially careful about your personal biases. Note that such corrections might only get a passing mention because corrections for under-reporting is so common in epidemology.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
xster 5y ago
When making blanket statements, some citations could help

tsimionescu 5y ago

Absolutely. Just to add to your examples of why soluicide is systematically under-reported in certain countries, in many Eastern Orthodox countries (Eastern Europe, Russia, Greece), suicide is considered a mortal sin and victims of suicide are denied burial in religious cemeteries (and denied normal religious burial rights) by the church.

ed_balls 5y ago
> denied burial in religious cemeteries Same for Catholics and most of Christians, hence no suicide attacks.
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  That hasn't been true since the 1960's, in the case of Catholics. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-catholic-churchs-own-complicated-history-with-suicide https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-catholic-churchs-own-compl...
  - ed_balls 5y ago
    but the stigma is still there.
maxgashkov 5y ago
Not only that, but in Russia you may be slapped with the fine for the 'propaganda of suicide' (I shit you not it's the real law) if you even discuss suicide on more or less popular platform.

yyy888sss 5y ago

Strongly agree. Recently an important religious leader in my town died, and the police stated it was accident though they had clear evidence it was suicide because they knew it would distress the public less.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wyager 5y ago

I’ve heard that Japan will classify murder-suicide deaths as suicide deaths, because their word for “suicide” actually has a slightly different denotation.

gfody 5y ago
similarly how eskimos have a bunch of words for "snow", and new yorkers have a bunch of words for "pizza", japanese have a bunch of words for "suicide"
naniwaduni 5y ago
Are murder-suicides not classed as suicides outside of Japan?
- wyager 5y ago
  The people who get killed are not counted as suicide deaths in most countries.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

Pretty much all fatal single-car accidents are suicides, IIRC. Cops play nice with the grieving family so they can get their life insurance benefits.

rscnt 5y ago
Do you have sources for this? Here in El Salvador we have highways without lamps, streets that drivers treat as highways, crosswalk where you cannot longer see the painting. I guess you're referring to the U.S., right?
gfody 5y ago
are you counting unintentional like falling asleep behind the wheel?
wahern 5y ago
In much (most? all?) of the United States, life insurance contracts generally cover suicide, except that individual policies will typically have 2-3 year exclusion period. My individual term life policy has a 2-year exclusion period, but otherwise covers suicide. I can't track down the precise reasons for this, whether its related to case law, state statutes, etc. Closest hit I found for California was Insurance Code § 11066(h), but that's for policies issued by fraternal societies. (It probably echoes some other statute or case law.) There are endless Google hits from law and insurance web sites stating this general fact.
lazyasciiart 5y ago
That's completely false. Among many other factors, about 50% of single-car crashes involve passengers, which would imply a disturbingly high number of murder-suicides.
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  I think maybe OP meant single passenger car accident
  - 5y ago

KennyBlanken 5y ago

Even if the absolute number is wrong (which it isn't, necessarily), the relative trend is dramatically upward, and the biases you describe wouldn't appear to account for such a trend. > The results show a record-high 415 children killed themselves in the year through March. That's up nearly 100 from the previous school year. I believe this is mirrored in other countries. The pandemic really hasn't been great for a lot of middle/high school kids. Also: please be mindful that generally if some "obvious fault" occurs to you, it probably occurs to the people for whom this is their professional area of expertise or even life's work, their work has likely been reviewed by a number of their peers, etc. Internet discussion forum commenters are highly unlikely to be the first person to think of some flaw in their work. I'm not saying they always will do said correction, but that if you're going to be skeptical, check to see if the correction was made instead of just dismissing or discounting the data, and be especially careful about your personal biases. Note that such corrections might only get a passing mention because corrections for under-reporting is so common in epidemology.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

xster 5y ago

When making blanket statements, some citations could help