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> There would be a national alarm if we had 18 blue-collar workers jump off the roofs of a GM plant. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I did want to p

by awj 15y ago

> There would be a national alarm if we had 18 blue-collar workers jump off the roofs of a GM plant. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I did want to point out the faulty logic at play here. It would be a national alarm because this number is very high for our nation. Any time you're dealing with foreign cultures it's easy to forget about all of the things that are only true for your culture. Eighteen suicides sounds awfully high, but if it's lower than the average it's actually progress. I'm sure we'd all be much happier if the number was zero, but I'll take progress toward an ideal over ineffectually trying to force it to happen immediately. note: I have no idea what the average suicide rate is in China, "as a public statement" or otherwise. The article quotes 22/100,000/year and extrapolates from that to say that Foxconn is "doing well." My point is that judging foreign cultures by your own standards is a dicey game, and sometimes you just have to be content with improvement instead of trying to mandate equality.

dev_jim 15y ago
It would be a national alarm because this number is very high for our nation Eighteen was just using the number in the article. A national alarm would be sounded if 3 workers jumped to their death at a GM plant last year. GM executives would be tripping over themselves to show remorse, there would be a 60 Minutes specials on the reason GM drove the employees to their deaths, psychologists would be called in to help workers, etc., etc., etc. The point is that people would be alarmed, as they should be. People wouldn't be making excuses that suicide happens, deal with it. Eighteen suicides sounds awfully high, but if it's lower than the average it's actually progress. Again, we don't know the suicide rate of employees Foxconn. We know the number of people who have jumped to their death. You can't extrapolate a subset of the suicides and compare that to the national average for all suicides.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  People probably would be irrationally alarmed. People are also irrationally alarmed when one pretty blond girl vanishes, or when a moron tries to set his underwear on fire on a plane. 60 minutes does devote undue attention to such things, and Obama would probably say "something must be done". People are more irrational about some topics than others. So what?
  - dev_jim 15y ago
    People probably would be irrationally alarmed. It's irrational to be alarmed about a company driving workers to commit suicide? Are you seriously making that argument?
    - pseudonym 15y ago
      I work in the game industry. It is, traditionally, a higher stress environment than other jobs. If someone can't take the stress of the job, is it the fault of the industry, the company, or the mental processes of the person in question? I won't say that the company has no blame, but fobbing off 100% of the responsibility for suicide onto the company is faulty logic at best. When you're considering committing suicide, there's definitely an issue, and more than some of it may be in the way you process stress and/or your environment.
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      Yes, it is irrational to worry about a suicides rate of a subset of people which is not statistically different than the suicide rate of the nation as a whole. You'll note that I'm not applying any double standard to China - I made the exact same argument two years ago about France Telecom: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=872813 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=872813
      - wbienek 15y ago
        Busted em. Most people don't know how many people die from lightning. Or on our roads every day. It dwarfs all other "death " news". At the end of each report on death they should say: And to put that in perspective x hundred will die from lightning this year and over 50k will die in cars ( in America 250k die per year in china) . We need a war or CAR TERROR.
      - Natsu 15y ago
        You did not respond to his point that the suicide rate of people who jumped to their deaths is unlikely to represent the entire number of suicides. I tend to agree with him. Given that someone is posting an infographic here that appears to tacitly claim that the few workers who jumped represent the entire list of suicides at Foxconn, you'll forgive me if I want to examine the data sources and know exactly how the reporting mechanisms work. Because when I see how anomalously low it is compared to the suicide rate pretty much everywhere else, exactly one thing springs to mind: under-reporting.
- awj 15y ago
  > You can't extrapolate a subset of the suicides and compare that to the national average for all suicides. No, but you can't meaningfully compare suicide rates between socio-economic climates either. I mean, you can look at the numbers and say "each death is sad, I wish both were lower", but that's about it. Achieving that goal is something you have to do in context. Mandating that a wildly different culture meet your culture's definition of ... anything is a very dangerous game.

by awj 15y ago

dev_jim 15y ago

It would be a national alarm because this number is very high for our nation Eighteen was just using the number in the article. A national alarm would be sounded if 3 workers jumped to their death at a GM plant last year. GM executives would be tripping over themselves to show remorse, there would be a 60 Minutes specials on the reason GM drove the employees to their deaths, psychologists would be called in to help workers, etc., etc., etc. The point is that people would be alarmed, as they should be. People wouldn't be making excuses that suicide happens, deal with it. Eighteen suicides sounds awfully high, but if it's lower than the average it's actually progress. Again, we don't know the suicide rate of employees Foxconn. We know the number of people who have jumped to their death. You can't extrapolate a subset of the suicides and compare that to the national average for all suicides.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
People probably would be irrationally alarmed. People are also irrationally alarmed when one pretty blond girl vanishes, or when a moron tries to set his underwear on fire on a plane. 60 minutes does devote undue attention to such things, and Obama would probably say "something must be done". People are more irrational about some topics than others. So what?
- dev_jim 15y ago
  People probably would be irrationally alarmed. It's irrational to be alarmed about a company driving workers to commit suicide? Are you seriously making that argument?
  - pseudonym 15y ago
    I work in the game industry. It is, traditionally, a higher stress environment than other jobs. If someone can't take the stress of the job, is it the fault of the industry, the company, or the mental processes of the person in question? I won't say that the company has no blame, but fobbing off 100% of the responsibility for suicide onto the company is faulty logic at best. When you're considering committing suicide, there's definitely an issue, and more than some of it may be in the way you process stress and/or your environment.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    Yes, it is irrational to worry about a suicides rate of a subset of people which is not statistically different than the suicide rate of the nation as a whole. You'll note that I'm not applying any double standard to China - I made the exact same argument two years ago about France Telecom: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=872813 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=872813
    - wbienek 15y ago
      Busted em. Most people don't know how many people die from lightning. Or on our roads every day. It dwarfs all other "death " news". At the end of each report on death they should say: And to put that in perspective x hundred will die from lightning this year and over 50k will die in cars ( in America 250k die per year in china) . We need a war or CAR TERROR.
    - Natsu 15y ago
      You did not respond to his point that the suicide rate of people who jumped to their deaths is unlikely to represent the entire number of suicides. I tend to agree with him. Given that someone is posting an infographic here that appears to tacitly claim that the few workers who jumped represent the entire list of suicides at Foxconn, you'll forgive me if I want to examine the data sources and know exactly how the reporting mechanisms work. Because when I see how anomalously low it is compared to the suicide rate pretty much everywhere else, exactly one thing springs to mind: under-reporting.
awj 15y ago
> You can't extrapolate a subset of the suicides and compare that to the national average for all suicides. No, but you can't meaningfully compare suicide rates between socio-economic climates either. I mean, you can look at the numbers and say "each death is sad, I wish both were lower", but that's about it. Achieving that goal is something you have to do in context. Mandating that a wildly different culture meet your culture's definition of ... anything is a very dangerous game.