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Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

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Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

#171

Post by wwweston »

reaperducer wrote: post #134
dragonwriter wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not a boundary between them, one is a subset of the other. And what it really shows is how old and large the Church is (and, specifically how many questions it's been called in to address.) How doctrinaire the Church is a pastoral question that (in terms of the central authority at least) changes considerably over time and especially with changes in Popes. Because, for all the accumulated history, tradition,…

what it really shows is how old and large the Church is It's like trying to maintain a codebase for 1,700 years with only one major revision.

There've certainly been forks. Arguably even the occasional rewrite. :)

Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

#172

Post by thedevil »

coryfklein wrote: post #166
thedevil wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So some possible hypotheses (in what I would consider most to least plausible): 1) Whatever causes the higher overall rates in Utah (altitude and/or other variables) that interacts in a non-linear way with whatever is causing the national increase. 2) Whatever factor that is driving the national increase is more influential in Utah for whatever reason. (e.g. maybe social networks are more harmful to more-judgmental M…

One particularly strong datum in favor of 3/4 is the "November policy". On November 5th 2015 the church released a new policy: * Claimed it is from God * If you are gay then you are declared apostate and excommunicated (the strongest punishment that can be applied by the church, with extreme social repercussions) * If your parents are gay, you're not allowed to be baptized at age 8 like other children, even given par…

That sounds horrible, but I'm not sure that explains the numbers. A quick internet search suggests that LGBT youth have 3x the suicide attempt rate.

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/preventing-suicid...

Given that LGBT is maybe 4-10% of the population of the population, it's not likely to be driving such a big spike in the total numbers. I'd be interested in a more careful breakdown if anyone has it.

Additionally, my interactions with Mormons suggests them (and pretty much everyone else) becoming more tolerant of LGBT, not less. However, that's anecdotes, not data.

Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

#173

Post by rblion »

xeromal wrote: post #70
rblion wrote: post #57

Considering moving to SLC, it's the perfect hub for all the stuff I like to do and has lots of nice people and food. Airport is not crowded either. I love how mountains are visible from most places as well. Within a few hours I can be at the Grand Canyon or at Yellowston or in Denver or in Las Vegas.

I've lived in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles and SLC and SLC is easily my favorite of the bunch. LA has more amenities, but SLC balances that with WAYYYY more accessible outdoor activities, a proper winter, cheap housing, and nicer people.

I grew up in Atlanta (dislike many things about it but it'll always be where I visit my family), visited LA (crowded but I'll revisit), want to visit Chicago (food, museums, skyline).

I lived in Utah for a year for learning/work. I liked how clean Utah was and how good the quality of life was. Only trade-off was the Mormon vibe but that can be avoided if you are in SLC.

I plan to buy an SUV and drive all my stuff there, live a real simple life, work remotely, take as many adventures as my heart desires.

Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

#174

Post by thedevil »

saosebastiao wrote: post #167
thedevil wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So some possible hypotheses (in what I would consider most to least plausible): 1) Whatever causes the higher overall rates in Utah (altitude and/or other variables) that interacts in a non-linear way with whatever is causing the national increase. 2) Whatever factor that is driving the national increase is more influential in Utah for whatever reason. (e.g. maybe social networks are more harmful to more-judgmental M…

> 1) Whatever causes the higher overall rates in Utah (altitude and/or other variables) that interacts in a non-linear way with whatever is causing the national increase. Any proponent of this hypothesis will face quite the uphill battle explaining why suicide rates are growing nowhere near as fast in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, or Nevada. > 2) Whatever factor that is driving the national…

As mentioned in another reply, I don't think LGBT is big enough portion of the population to really drive a huge change, despite having high suicide rates.

I'd be interested to see gender breakdown to see if modesty is an issue. I find it implausible, but would love to see data showing me wrong. Especially because when I grew up Mormon (I'm now atheist), a bikini was pretty risque but now I see conservative Mormons wearing bikinis as often as not. A priori, I would also expect modesty to decrease, not increase suicide rates (especially among the overweight or otherwise less-attractive). I'm not rooting for sexual modesty. I think it's probably good for society, but I don't care for it.

Pornography is interesting. I don't know how much Mormons have focused on it, but I'd be fascinated to see if that was a factor.

Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

#175

Post by coryfklein »

thedevil wrote: post #172
coryfklein wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One particularly strong datum in favor of 3/4 is the "November policy". On November 5th 2015 the church released a new policy: * Claimed it is from God * If you are gay then you are declared apostate and excommunicated (the strongest punishment that can be applied by the church, with extreme social repercussions) * If your parents are gay, you're not allowed to be baptized at age 8 like other children, even given par…

That sounds horrible, but I'm not sure that explains the numbers. A quick internet search suggests that LGBT youth have 3x the suicide attempt rate. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/preventing-suicid... Given that LGBT is maybe 4-10% of the population of the population, it's not likely to be driving such a big spike in the total numbers. I'd be interested in a more careful breakdown if anyone has it. Additi…

I 100% agree that everyday interactions with Mormons suggests they are becoming more tolerant, and most of them struggle with the policies that are set by the church.

The issue is that the uppermost echelon of church leadership is a lifetime calling, they aren't replaced until one of them dies. This leads to the prophets and apostles all being the _oldest_ members of the church, and usually the most regressive. Combine that with the fact that obedience to leadership is tantamount to even personal revelation, and you get lots of hate speech over the pulpit even while the members in the pews are actually rather tolerant.

Let me run the numbers here though - if we have 100,000 youth then in 2015 there were 11 (0.011%) that committed suicide. If 4% of them are gay, that is 4,000 gay youth, and if their suicide rate is 3x the average then we'd expect 0.033% or 1-2 LGBT youth suicides.

If that were the end of it, I'd agree with you that it can't explain the near doubling. But would we expect LGBT youth to commit suicide more often, less often, or the same in a community with the above "November policy" kind of standards? I'd wager that LGBT youth suicides in Utah account for closer to 30% of all youth suicides.

I agree it doesn't completely explain the rise, but it seems a significant enough factor to be including in discussion.

Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

#176

Post by AnimalMuppet »

xeromal wrote: post #70
rblion wrote: post #57

Considering moving to SLC, it's the perfect hub for all the stuff I like to do and has lots of nice people and food. Airport is not crowded either. I love how mountains are visible from most places as well. Within a few hours I can be at the Grand Canyon or at Yellowston or in Denver or in Las Vegas.

I've lived in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles and SLC and SLC is easily my favorite of the bunch. LA has more amenities, but SLC balances that with WAYYYY more accessible outdoor activities, a proper winter, cheap housing, and nicer people.

Some of us consider outdoor activities and nice people to be "amenities"...

Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

#177

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ProfBernardo wrote: post #29

Better public transportation means more bodies in the seats at church.

The LDS church has a church in every neighborhood out here. People don't take public transportation to get to them. They're literally as close as the bus stop for many people.

Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

#179

Post by chrispeel »

tntn wrote: post #44
billiam wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I too know many LDS members and really love the SLC area and all the other incredible things in the state. While I like lots of things about the LDS community, the society there has many of the problems of Western states with lots of poverty, plus some that may be attributed to Mormon values: the highest rate of antidepressant use of any state, and the highest rate of cosmetic surgery. As for crime, the murder…

> plus some that may be attributed to Mormon values: the highest rate of antidepressant use of any state, I won't dispute this, but I will mention some interesting hypotheses that indicate rates of depression are highly correlated with altitude.

For more on altitude and depression see https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321219.php and https://www.livescience.com/50813-low-oxygen-increase-depres...

Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021

#180

Post by xeromal »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #176
xeromal wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles and SLC and SLC is easily my favorite of the bunch. LA has more amenities, but SLC balances that with WAYYYY more accessible outdoor activities, a proper winter, cheap housing, and nicer people.

Some of us consider outdoor activities and nice people to be "amenities"...

I agree with you on that, but LA still has more for sure. Mountains are an hour and a half away, but they are there. LA has more diversity in food and people so you can find your niche. Do you want Paleo vegan oatmeal cheesecake? Then there's an entire store dedicated to that. The scale LA runs at enables all these niche things.

I still love SLC more though.

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