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Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

nytimes.com

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Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#101

Post by dropit_sphere »

smt88 wrote: post #90
dropit_sphere wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanc...

I skimmed this and have no idea what it has to do with the comment I was responding to. The argument in the article seems to be that, if you're a good guy on paper (you don't abuse women, you're financially stable, etc.) that you should get attention from women instead of men who aren't good guys on paper. My response is similar: the world is not a vending machine where you insert "hard work" or "not beating women" a…

If you skimmed it, then you should read it again, in full. Because it didn't say what you think it said.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#102

Post by djtriptych »

vfrogger wrote: post #94
djtriptych wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell me you're under 25 y/o

Because I'm suggesting that there might be less community support today than in the past because fewer people today attend church which historically has been a major source of social interaction within a community? I fail to see how this is a ridiculous hypothesis. It might not be true, but ridiculing someone for their hypothesis instead of addressing the hypothesis itself doesn't speak well to your own level of matu…

So what about the millions of years of human social interaction before church?

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#103

Post by rhizome »

briholt wrote: post #17
rhizome wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's tons of jobs out there for people with only a high school diploma. "Web Developer" is one of them.

Genuine question: have you ever heard of an uneducated, fifty-year-old unemployed factory worker becoming a successful web developer? Maybe there are a tiny number, but I've never heard of such a thing. Re-educating fifty-year-olds into complete new fields on any mass scale is just not realistic. We're talking about millions of people that have minimal math skills, mediocre writing skills, and no computer skills. Eve…

That's not the sense I was using for "lots of jobs." My point was that the GP instantly compartmentalized the mortality of 40-50yo high-school graduates to being marginal workers most likely to be outsourced. This to me feels a little too narrow.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#104

Post by vfrogger »

djtriptych wrote: post #102
vfrogger wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I'm suggesting that there might be less community support today than in the past because fewer people today attend church which historically has been a major source of social interaction within a community? I fail to see how this is a ridiculous hypothesis. It might not be true, but ridiculing someone for their hypothesis instead of addressing the hypothesis itself doesn't speak well to your own level of matu…

So what about the millions of years of human social interaction before church?

I fail to see how our primate ancestors ability to socialize outside of church somehow disproves that removing a large social component in modern American life could lead to less social support.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#105

Post by vfrogger »

vfrogger wrote: post #104
djtriptych wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what about the millions of years of human social interaction before church?

I fail to see how our primate ancestors ability to socialize outside of church somehow disproves that removing a large social component in modern American life could lead to less social support.

I just did a quick google search on church affiliation and suicide rates (to bring this back to the original article and my hypothesis), here's an interesting study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on the topic:

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.16...

So at least one study seems to support the hypothesis (interesting that it also showed increased substance abuse, which was also discussed as one of the culprit's of the higher death rate for white men).

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#106

Post by vfrogger »

awl130 wrote: post #40
vfrogger wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can tie this to economics alone. After all, blacks and hispanics have been feeling the economic pressures as well. Suicide, drug use, and alcoholism have deeper cultural ties. I have no idea what those ties are, but it likely won't be fixed by a 4% annual increase in wages. I can't help but wonder if perhaps this increase in self destructive behavior is due to an increase in secularism. Blacks and H…

Good theory but the same cohort in Europe has not seen the same Effect despite even higher secularization

I don't know, I don't believe Europe is really doing a bang up job of preventing suicide either, but I will admit that I don't know much about the situation, I'm just hypothesizing.

Re: Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

#107

Post by djtriptych »

vfrogger wrote: post #105
vfrogger wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how our primate ancestors ability to socialize outside of church somehow disproves that removing a large social component in modern American life could lead to less social support.

I just did a quick google search on church affiliation and suicide rates (to bring this back to the original article and my hypothesis), here's an interesting study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on the topic: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.16... So at least one study seems to support the hypothesis (interesting that it also showed increased substance abuse, which was also…

Well if you did a quick google search, I guess I'll abandon my argument based on millions of years of human evolution.
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