Why do so few humans kill themselves? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#131

Post by spdustin » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:13 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #108

bluehazed wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chronic pain is an entirely different beast from acute pain.

Totally agreed. I woke up once with severe arthralgia throughout my entire body, went to the ER and was asked to rate my pain level. Despite being the worst pain I've ever felt (woke up in tears due to the weight of the blanket on my toes), I answered a 7/10. Acute pain – not really a big deal. Unfortunately, whatever caused the arthralgia was (and still is) a complete mystery, and by day 5 of having top pediatrician…

I watched my father live with the pain caused by ankylosing spondylitis [0] for decades before he died. I myself live with the pain of psoriatic arthritis[1], and occasional uveitis [2], both related conditions I knew I was genetically predisposed to (HLA-B27 [3]).

It isn't easy. The pharmacological therapies I know would be most effective are too expensive. And so I have to choose how to avoid suffering from my pain, every day. I choose work, music, my family, antidepressant and anti-anxiety medication, and participating in communities (like this one) where I may find peers.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankylosing_spondylitis [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psoriatic_arthritis [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterior_uveitis [3]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HLA-B27

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#132

Post by PragmaticPulp » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:16 PM UTC

nibs wrote: post #57

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine if you want to medicate yourself with lithium, but it's not acceptable to forcibly medicate everyone else. The studies you linked to show an interesting correlation between lithium in water supplies and reduced suicide levels, but you can't judge the net benefit on a single metric alone. Lithium is not without side effects, and it's unreasonable to suggest that the vast majority of the population that is ot…

Lithium is an element, not just a medication. The element is used to medicate people with bipolar, in huge dosages. You and I both consume lithium every day. We may consume slightly more or less than others. The ones who consume slightly more kill themselves significantly less, with no side effects. Lithium the medication is in 100-1000x the dosages, hence the side effects. If it is bad in high (but naturally occurri…

> Lithium is an element, not just a medication.

It doesn't matter if you call it an element or a medication, it has non-negligible medical effects and side effects. If it had no relevant effects, we wouldn't be discussing it here.

> The ones who consume slightly more kill themselves significantly less, with no side effects.

"No side effects" is an impossible claim to make. The studies we do have show a correlation between lithium in the water supply and suicidal frequency in the population. The side effects have not been studied.

For some hard evidence: Lithium in drinking water is correlated with changes of thyroid function: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114818/

Lithium most certainly does have side effects that are dose- and time-dependent. The side effects may be minimal at low concentrations, but when applied to a population over the course of a lifetime, they would certainly add up. Especially for those who are most susceptible to the negative effects.

It's also not hard to imagine that lithium's suicide rate reduction effects (which are purely correlation at this point, FWIW) are due to it's tendency to mellow people out. The cognitive dulling of even small amounts of lithium orotate in healthy (non-bipolar and non-suicidal) people are palpable. Would you still advocate for lithium in the water if it reduced the average intelligence of the population by, say, 1%? I'm picking hypothetical numbers here, but the reality is that there are certainly downsides to mass-medicating people with small doses of lithium.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#133

Post by abandonliberty » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

Practicality wrote: post #62

mikeash wrote: post #19

While interesting, this article seems to ignore the possibility that most people simply have a very strong desire to live. It assumes that if someone is suffering, and death would end that suffering, then suicide makes sense, and something weird must be going on to make people keep going. But this really doesn't make sense. The entire concept of suffering exists merely to keep us alive. We experience pain and despair…

In addition to a desire to live, not everyone views suffering as the worst possible thing. If I had to be in serious pain every day but could keep doing many things I would rather keep living with the pain. The loss in experience is worse than any level of pain. For the obvious counterpoint: I say that from experience not naivete. I've had a nerve in my hand accidentally sliced lengthwise (for a significant length) b…

15 years ago I may have said something similar.

I'm going to try to shed a little light on how chronic pain and disability is a bit different than acute.

I've lived with chronic pain for over 10 years. As a registered person with disabilities, college resources helped me get by - but these did not exist in the real world for someone like me.

It prevented me from working in my field of study and preference and severely limited my freedom and willingness to take risks. I encouraged friends and peers to chase my dreams; they have succeeded where I could not.

On the spectrum of pain and disability I'm relatively lucky. My condition cannot kill me. At worst, it can only prevent me from doing what I want and deny my dreams. I have managed, and am somewhere in the top 20%. My old friends are in the top 5%. I burn my life doing irrelevant work because my employer has a good benefits package that has my back if I take a turn for the worse.

Now, with age, my body and mind is starting to deteriorate, and with it the dream of figuring a way to truly overcome my challenges rather than just get by.

I have it pretty good.

Anyway, I'm off to an experimental treatment where they'll stab me 20-30 times with a needle. Unfortunately my condition causes hypersensitivity. Acute pain doesn't really matter though. They claim to have improvement in 70% of patients but the published, controlled, literature is less encouraging. This is the best outlook and most hope I've had in years.

Maybe if I keep calm, remain positive, and make myself more susceptible to placebo I can get my life back. Or maybe I'll just be one of the lucky ones.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#134

Post by sebringj » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

Evolution goes deeper than your rationalizations. Our brains descended from a long line of successful matings that obviously waited long enough to fuck before checking out. Possibly the fucking potential keeps us keepin' on in the lower level of our subconscious. It may also be hard wired preservation (the fear of pain), basic pleasure, caring of others, the illusion of god(s) or some imagined purpose of life, but I would guess mostly the fucking potential drives it all, at least for the younger. There's just a lot of good things to distract us from wanting death. But again, it goes deeper than our rationalizations so its going to be hard to say exactly without in depth scientific studies on the matter.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#135

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #126

ultramancool wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but if it's having a mental effect of notable size it still causes me concern. If you're happy with your current behaviors I don't see why you'd want it. Wouldn't it be better for individuals to just opt to take it themselves, encourage usage of those already existing environmental sources, etc?

My close experience with depression (not myself) is that it can takes years for someone to accept the thought of being depressed, and even more time to seek help. Sadly, there's too much prejudice and taboo over mental health in our society. People treat it as a badge of shame, not a disease.

[deleted]

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#136

Post by guard-of-terra » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #108

bluehazed wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chronic pain is an entirely different beast from acute pain.

Totally agreed. I woke up once with severe arthralgia throughout my entire body, went to the ER and was asked to rate my pain level. Despite being the worst pain I've ever felt (woke up in tears due to the weight of the blanket on my toes), I answered a 7/10. Acute pain – not really a big deal. Unfortunately, whatever caused the arthralgia was (and still is) a complete mystery, and by day 5 of having top pediatrician…

I think we humans for some reason have ridiculously wide pain gauge. I can only theorize that we've got super pain sensitivity along with super brain.

Humans are very often disabled by pain alone, with neligible body damage. That's clearly evolutionary disadvantageous. Makes torture possible, etc.

Relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/883/

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#137

Post by pasbesoin » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:26 PM UTC

Altruism. You believe in the human race -- perhaps despite being majorly screwed by some individuals. You just no longer believe in yourself.

I'm about there, myself.

P.S. When I wrote this, I missed the "few" in the title.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#138

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #126

ultramancool wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but if it's having a mental effect of notable size it still causes me concern. If you're happy with your current behaviors I don't see why you'd want it. Wouldn't it be better for individuals to just opt to take it themselves, encourage usage of those already existing environmental sources, etc?

My close experience with depression (not myself) is that it can takes years for someone to accept the thought of being depressed, and even more time to seek help. Sadly, there's too much prejudice and taboo over mental health in our society. People treat it as a badge of shame, not a disease.

[deleted]

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#139

Post by beachstartup » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

Practicality wrote: post #62

mikeash wrote: post #19

While interesting, this article seems to ignore the possibility that most people simply have a very strong desire to live. It assumes that if someone is suffering, and death would end that suffering, then suicide makes sense, and something weird must be going on to make people keep going. But this really doesn't make sense. The entire concept of suffering exists merely to keep us alive. We experience pain and despair…

In addition to a desire to live, not everyone views suffering as the worst possible thing. If I had to be in serious pain every day but could keep doing many things I would rather keep living with the pain. The loss in experience is worse than any level of pain. For the obvious counterpoint: I say that from experience not naivete. I've had a nerve in my hand accidentally sliced lengthwise (for a significant length) b…

> However, before that happened I was much more interested in what was going on and how unique this level of pain was

your post brought back a memory of mine. i crushed my finger once while doing something mechanical. the bone was crushed into pieces.

it hurt so bad i started laughing. i had to be driven to the hospital because i couldn't even see straight.

that level of pain is something else, for sure. it hurts so bad, but you can detach yourself from it, somehow.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#140

Post by Practicality » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

kdamken wrote: post #71

Practicality wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to a desire to live, not everyone views suffering as the worst possible thing. If I had to be in serious pain every day but could keep doing many things I would rather keep living with the pain. The loss in experience is worse than any level of pain. For the obvious counterpoint: I say that from experience not naivete. I've had a nerve in my hand accidentally sliced lengthwise (for a significant length) b…

Out of curiosity - was the pain fixed when you woke back up? Because brief, intense pain like that is one thing, but experiencing pain all day, everyday is a very different beast. Even if it's a tenth of the pain that you felt, that kind of thing really wears on you, especially after years and years and no help from doctors.

I've also torn three ligaments (complete separation) in my ankle and they hurt more than 1/10th of that every day. Honestly I really don't care about the pain. It bothers people around me much more that I limp severely than it bothers me that I hurt. It's not something I care to think about because when I do then I feel self-pity.