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

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#171

Post by SilasX » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 5:50 PM UTC

_jgvg wrote: post #23

Maybe we should just add lithium to the water supply, although that would drive conspiracy theorists crazy! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1699579 "Using data for 27 Texas counties from 1978-1987, it is shown that the incidence rates of suicide, homicide, and rape are significantly higher in counties whose drinking water supplies contain little or no lithium than in counties with water lithium levels ranging from…

Ethically, what's the difference between that and water fluoridation? Atomic number?

In both cases, you're forcing a chemical on people that the evidence says would be to their benefit, but with a Knightian ("unknown unknown") risk of really hurting them.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#172

Post by amelius » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

_jgvg wrote: post #23

Maybe we should just add lithium to the water supply, although that would drive conspiracy theorists crazy! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1699579 "Using data for 27 Texas counties from 1978-1987, it is shown that the incidence rates of suicide, homicide, and rape are significantly higher in counties whose drinking water supplies contain little or no lithium than in counties with water lithium levels ranging from…

Or perhaps people should start taking more cod-liver oil, like people did in the old days.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#173

Post by jpttsn » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

ComodoHacker wrote: post #159

>Close to 100% of humans could suicide, and yet ‘only’ about 1.4% do Very bad and misleading wording. 1.4% here is of total number of deaths, not total number of people. Also, both numbers seem untrue. Wiki says[1] "approximately 0.5% to 1.4% of people die by suicide". 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide#Epidemiology

What's the difference? Everyone dies, right?

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#174

Post by ohnomrbill » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 6:07 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…

There is a big difference between pain you can reasonably expect to go away and pain you cannot reasonably expect to go away.

Suicidal ideation is due to the latter, not the former.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#175

Post by rtkwe » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 6:11 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #171

_jgvg wrote: post #23

Maybe we should just add lithium to the water supply, although that would drive conspiracy theorists crazy! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1699579 "Using data for 27 Texas counties from 1978-1987, it is shown that the incidence rates of suicide, homicide, and rape are significantly higher in counties whose drinking water supplies contain little or no lithium than in counties with water lithium levels ranging from…

Ethically, what's the difference between that and water fluoridation? Atomic number? In both cases, you're forcing a chemical on people that the evidence says would be to their benefit, but with a Knightian ("unknown unknown") risk of really hurting them.

The point of dumping lithium would be explicitly behavioral modification which is a different kind of thing entirely to the effects of fluoride in the water.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#176

Post by slantaclaus » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC

OK, now that I see the stat he's calling "low", 1.4%. I actually disagree. That's a pretty high number that we could probably get to go down further. Assuming that one person out of every graduating high school class is going to kill his/her-self would seem to me to be a fairly morbid assumption. But this appears to be the case.

I think the responsibility for the weight (or perhaps, levity) of the philosophical observations made in this article fall back only on the writer himself, and his own attitude(s) towards suicide.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#177

Post by adynatos » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

this is overly simplistic. melancholic depression is roughly 3/4 of all cases, the rest is from bipolar disorder, which makes it more likely to for people to kill themselves. how does this theory explain postpartum depression in females?

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#178

Post by sinxoveretothex » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 6:41 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #143

sinxoveretothex wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's illogical to design a system that can pop out one baby every nine months To design? Are you a creationist? Assuming you're just confused, evolution doesn't "design" life. It's just a "whatever works" process. For example, angler fish have a lure that resembles prey for their prey. This has been selected by the eyes of their prey. It's not that the prey wanted their predator to fool them, it's just that angler…

No, that's how you explain things after the fact. If women could bear children until they died, we'd explain it by saying "well that's obviously because it's more advantageous to have more children". Again, something that can equally well explain why something happened and didn't happen doesn't have any explanatory power. Put it another way, if I asked you "would you think that evolution would select for women bearin…

> that's how you explain things after the fact

I agree, that's what I said "if what your parent comment suggests is true"

In fact, said parent comment said "It might have been a mere speculation but it kind of makes sense"

I agree with you that there is no predictive power in explaining things that way (indeed, what I said is speculation, hence why I worded it in the conditional), but that was not what I was responding to. I was only responding to the "design" part of your comment.

That being said, evolution does make predictions which have been confirmed. Notably Darwin's long-nosed moth. Here's a list of more predictions[1]

[1] http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/evo_science.html

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#179

Post by Kenji » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #115

Kenji wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ludicrous. Let people decide that for themselves. I can't believe anyone is seriously suggesting force medicating us because it seems to be correlated (note, correlation, not necessarily causation) with a drop of suicide, homicide and rape. We don't even know how lithium would cause such a thing and its exact effect on the psyche. I have been following the field of psychology and psychiatry closely and let me tell yo…

You're already medicated. Fluorine is added to water, and iodine to salt.

Your point being? I am opposed to that too. I just think it should be people's own decision to medicate themselves however they see fit. At least with the salt you can buy whatever salt you please,with or without iodine. The water supply, on the other hand, cannot be chosen.

Re: Why do so few humans kill themselves?

#180

Post by mikeash » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

saiko-chriskun wrote: post #167

mikeash wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a terrifying sentiment. I'm astonished at how attracted people are to theories where problems are necessarily the fault of the person experiencing them. Hey, if you're suffering, there's an easy solution: just choose not to! Gee, why didn't I ever think of that.

is it really that astonishing? it means that you're in complete control of your experience. quite a powerful statement. this isn't a blame game, no one's pointing fingers at anyone and saying, 'gee just think more positively man" or whatever. it's a personal strategy for managing one's own suffering, and a quite powerful one at that.

Pointing fingers and telling people to think more positively is a really common reaction to depression. I think that's why I reacted so strongly to it: it sounds so much like a common counterproductive refrain.