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The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

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Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#131
post #13

For comparison, here are a few of the highest rates per 100k in the US: 98.7 - Kusilvak Census Area, AK; 75.1 - Nome Census Area, AK; 64.2 - Sioux County, ND; 58.9 - Buffalo County, SD; 49.3 - Carbon County, UT https://vizhub.healthdata.org/subnational/usa Extend the list and you see lots of high latitudes, low incomes, remote rural settings, and indigenous American populations (e.g. Yupik and Inupiaq in Alaska, Siou…

Great link. This is the interactive graphic that should have appeared with the article. Instead of a single narrative, users can explore various scenarios as they read along. Looking at this strictly from a geographic standpoint, for instance, there's something weird going on in North Dakota between Carson County and Sioux County. It really stands out on the map. Alaska also looks quite odd.

One of the causes in the ND patch is that there is a ton of space with nothing there. The amount of time for any medical care to arrive and then reach a hospital would be extremely high.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcoholism is always rampant when a population is first introduced to the drug. Over centuries, evolution acts to produce a population less prone to it, since people who drink themselves to death don't tend to reproduce. The population that has had access to alcohol for the longest (8000 years, according to a guess I saw somewhere) is the Chinese, where the "asian red flush" gene has developed as a protection against…

> Over centuries, evolution acts to produce a population less prone to it Is this a supposition? Or is there any evidence for this effect being real and/or it being significant over such evolutionarily short timescales?

Evolution can occur quickly! See e.g. the Peppered Moth.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#133
post #13

For comparison, here are a few of the highest rates per 100k in the US: 98.7 - Kusilvak Census Area, AK; 75.1 - Nome Census Area, AK; 64.2 - Sioux County, ND; 58.9 - Buffalo County, SD; 49.3 - Carbon County, UT https://vizhub.healthdata.org/subnational/usa Extend the list and you see lots of high latitudes, low incomes, remote rural settings, and indigenous American populations (e.g. Yupik and Inupiaq in Alaska, Siou…

Great link. This is the interactive graphic that should have appeared with the article. Instead of a single narrative, users can explore various scenarios as they read along. Looking at this strictly from a geographic standpoint, for instance, there's something weird going on in North Dakota between Carson County and Sioux County. It really stands out on the map. Alaska also looks quite odd.

How do you show suicide rate in that interactive graphic? By choosing "self-harm" as cause I assume?

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#134
post #109
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a large, heterogeneous nation and comparisons with small homogenous nations are misleading.

In what particular way is it misleading in this case, and in which direction?

An interesting thing is in the US, native-americans and white population has 2-3x the suicide rate as blacks, hispanics and asians. https://www.sprc.org/racial-ethnic-disparities

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#135
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"something weird" being the native american population, who have been getting trampled on by Americans for hundreds of years now.

It wouldn't explain why places that haven't been trampled on by Americans would have high suicide rates. South Korea and Japan both have pretty high suicide rates for example. Also, a large chunk of the suicides are young people who didn't leave through the eras where oppression occurred. I am not sure why somebody would commit suicide because something happened to their ancestors.

>It wouldn't explain why places that haven't been trampled on by Americans would have high suicide rates. South Korea and Japan both have pretty high suicide rates for example.

I wasn't trying to say anything about anywhere else.

>Also, a large chunk of the suicides are young people who didn't leave through the eras where oppression occurred. I am not sure why somebody would commit suicide because something happened to their ancestors.

Oppression still occurring, thanks.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the lazy “blame the violent colonialists” approach though. There’s a very high suicide rate amongst Greenland natives as well. Perhaps it’s because so much culture was surrounded around food gathering? Modern technology coming around and wiping out the need for most of your tribe to hunt and gather is going to have a big impact on cultures like that.

> That’s the lazy “blame the violent colonialists” approach though. Crazy to think that hundreds of years of violence and extraction had nothing to do with this, and it's just due to cultural faults. There's no world in which their legacy of oppression wouldn't affect their present day material conditions. > Modern technology coming around and wiping out the need for most of your tribe to hunt and gather is going to…

> Crazy to think that hundreds of years of violence and extraction had nothing to do with this, and it's just due to cultural faults.

It's extremely easy to see other groups of people who suffered the same thing, and have extremely low suicide rates. At which point you could create the same post-hoc explanation for the opposite outcome, about how hundreds of years of violence created very tough and mentally strong people.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#137
post #13

For comparison, here are a few of the highest rates per 100k in the US: 98.7 - Kusilvak Census Area, AK; 75.1 - Nome Census Area, AK; 64.2 - Sioux County, ND; 58.9 - Buffalo County, SD; 49.3 - Carbon County, UT https://vizhub.healthdata.org/subnational/usa Extend the list and you see lots of high latitudes, low incomes, remote rural settings, and indigenous American populations (e.g. Yupik and Inupiaq in Alaska, Siou…

Alcoholism is always rampant when a population is first introduced to the drug. Over centuries, evolution acts to produce a population less prone to it, since people who drink themselves to death don't tend to reproduce. The population that has had access to alcohol for the longest (8000 years, according to a guess I saw somewhere) is the Chinese, where the "asian red flush" gene has developed as a protection against…

Indigenous Americans made alcoholic fermented beverages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_Native_Americans#P...

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#138
When you read article, it is important to note the before state and after state. There a lot of things that happen in between.

First, you need to understand that this culture existed well before colonization, and it existed in peace. Secondly, the culture's history and knowledge, specifically on how to survive in such a harsh environment, was oral as the Inuit did not pass things on by reading and writing. This is a key point.

It's not that it's impossible to survive in the Arctic, it's that that are many requirements, and these requirements were passed on generation after generation. Much like an Astronaut has to pass tests to ensure that they can survive the remoteness of space, the same can be said here.

What happened next is that the people, who were the 'books' of knowledge were taken away, put in schools, killed, imprisoned, etc. The requirements to be able to live in this environment were no longer being met because the people responsible for the oral transmission of the requirements and knowledge, were no longer capable of doing so. The fragile ecosystem of the Inuit and the remote environment was disrupted.

I don't think people are getting the idea that their oral traditions were essentially what we would call religion. When religion was put forth a long, long time ago, it was there to shepard our civilization by providing requirements so that people can survive, and to enable them to deal with trauma, for example death, anger, etc.

If you were to rip out religion from a population thousands of years ago, burn all their books, and make them forget it, they probably would descent into chaos. This what happened here. The Inuit had their oral traditions, i.e. akin to religion in this example, removed, and the memory or books, disappeared as the information was in the people, and not in a book.

The alcoholism, violence, etc. are symptoms of our current society applied onto theirs. This problem will span generations, and the situation will only improve once they are able to get back their oral traditions, their religion, their way of structuring their life in order to survive in the remote location. Of course, this is more complicated than that because we've now injected our modern way of life into the mix. I don't know what the outcome will be, but I do think once they are able to find their oral traditions, and to remember the stories from the old, they will be better than they are now.

Just my 2 cents.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#139
post #29

Former Alaskan here. I wasn't shocked to find out Greenland and Nunavut which are also very high north have high suicide rates. The long dark winters can really mess with you after a while which can lead to substance abuse.

I think it is too easy to just make it about the environment. If you read the article it claims the suicide rate wasn't always this high. Something cultural got lost when they transitioned away from their nomadic lifestyle.

Anecdotal evidence: I used to live in Oregon, where it rains a majority of the year (or the skies are otherwise gray). I was super unhappy all the time and was regularly depressed. Moved to Florida where the sun is out virtually 365 days of the year. I haven't had a dark day since I got here some years ago. I'm living in a lower-class area too.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcoholism is always rampant when a population is first introduced to the drug. Over centuries, evolution acts to produce a population less prone to it, since people who drink themselves to death don't tend to reproduce. The population that has had access to alcohol for the longest (8000 years, according to a guess I saw somewhere) is the Chinese, where the "asian red flush" gene has developed as a protection against…

> Over centuries, evolution acts to produce a population less prone to it Is this a supposition? Or is there any evidence for this effect being real and/or it being significant over such evolutionarily short timescales?

All evolution ultimately is, is the result of factors favorable to reproduction staying the gene pool, since those with them quite tautologically tend to reproduce more, while factors unfavorable to reproduction get culled vice versa.

For a recent example of evolution on a practically real time scale see this [1]. Scientists released millions of genetically engineered mosquitoes into the wild. The genetically engineered mosquitoes were all male and engineered to produce infertile offspring. However, rare abnormalities allowed some mosquitoes to end up producing fertile offspring. The entire target population (in the wild) then began to adopt these characteristics and ended up rebounding from near extermination to near pre-release numbers.

That is evolution in fast forward due to a rapid reproduction rate, but even on a generational level this would have been an extremely rapid evolutionary adaptation.

And the same applies to humans. A seemingly ever larger number of things have major genetic factors -- alcoholism being one we've known about for quite some time. Alcoholics are less likely to live to successfully reproduce, and even when producing may produce defective offspring as a result of their alcoholism. So it creates an evolutionary imperative against susceptibility to alcoholism.

[1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49660-6

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