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The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

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Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#91

Post by handrous »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #55
Clubber wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"anything to make the pain go away" Sure, I think our rampant overdose problem and drug and alcohol over-use problem in general is a symptom of this. That's one of the reasons the war on drugs is so insidious, it punishes the people already suffering, which makes them suffer more, forcing a downward spiral that is almost impossible to get out of. All from a perceived moral failing. The US is pretty cruel to its citi…

I have not done much traveling, but Americans seem to self-medicate more?

We take way less vacation and have far more financial uncertainty and more bills (more complexity and more to keep track of just to get by), so our background level of stress is probably higher on average than in, say, most Western European states.

There may be other reasons that affect it more, but I'd fully expect that to be enough to result in more self-medication, all else being equal.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#92

Post by yCombLinks »

FinanceAnon wrote: post #66

It's impossible to measure, but I wonder what % of suicides happens because of the culture that we live in. A lot of times when you read about someone commiting suicide it's blamed on that individual or their mental health - but is that really the root issue? How many of the suicides wouldn't happen if society was set up in a different way?

I think the culture is extremely relevant. If you look at this map on the right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide You'll see China is a significant outlier, being the only country with a higher suicide rate for women than men. All of the western nations have rates between 3.5 and 4 as many men commit suicide as women, a shockingly high difference.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#93

Post by smolder »

jsmith45 wrote: post #60
okareaman wrote: post #42

As someone who has struggle with suicidal ideation his entire life, whenever the subject comes up I try to educate people by quoting author David Foster Wallace (who commited suicide) with the best explanation: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not becaus…

One flaw with the analogy is that a pretty significant portion of suicides (successful or attempts) are impulsive. Many people who attempt it have literally no idea they will when they wake up that morning. A 2001 University of Houston study of survivors of near lethal attempts showed that 70% of them had only decided to do it an hour or less before the attempt, and 24 percent had only spent 5 minutes before the atte…

These are great points but I don't see them as conflicting with the analogy. The suffering DFW refers to that drives someone to suicide is something felt in the moment. He contrasts the impulsive decision to die with deciding the same based on some balance sheet of suffering.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#94

Post by autoexec »

jsmith45 wrote: post #60
okareaman wrote: post #42

As someone who has struggle with suicidal ideation his entire life, whenever the subject comes up I try to educate people by quoting author David Foster Wallace (who commited suicide) with the best explanation: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not becaus…

One flaw with the analogy is that a pretty significant portion of suicides (successful or attempts) are impulsive. Many people who attempt it have literally no idea they will when they wake up that morning. A 2001 University of Houston study of survivors of near lethal attempts showed that 70% of them had only decided to do it an hour or less before the attempt, and 24 percent had only spent 5 minutes before the atte…

> Of 515 people prevented by police from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge between 1937 and 1971, by the end of the 70s only 6% of them had committed suicide by other means.

Perhaps much of that is because they got the help they needed following the incident. It probably also helps that they were a group made up of those who were able to be persuaded by police to not jump in the first place already showing at least some willingness to keep living.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#95

Post by saiya-jin »

Lammy wrote: post #75
hashhar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing this - I haven't yet looked but the description itself makes me feel bad that we don't let people make decisions for themselves. I feel the only reason we don't let people chose that path is to make ourselves feel good and feel "guilt-free". I recently had a situation where someone in my family was diagnosed with a life threatening condition but the dilemma was that if you chose to undergo treatmen…

It is illegal to kill oneself because it deprives the state of a taxpayer, and the state will not tolerate theft of its human resources.

Its way more primitive than that - christian moral code prohibits suicide as those will end up in hell. Then not-so-small part of population feels entitled to project their own righteous path unto rest of humanity while even feeling great about doing that 'in accordance to god's wishes'. Next thing you know, any abortion is illegal, heck in places like Poland even basic human rights are violated by exactly this kind of self-righteous crowd.

Obviously this is just one of example of one random major religion and tells us mostly about how small many humans are and how it manifests across society. Feel free to apply this to much of evil caused by mankind, basically since we were humans.

Eye opening for me was when I met this fellow Texan guy in Nepal in 2008, great guy otherwise, who was telling me how all those arabs in Iraq and Afghanistan would make great christians. They just need to understand the right choice. He really believed it. If felt so surreal.

Interestingly, place like Switzerland which is highly religious has been for a long time bastion of self-assisted suicide, so that folks come here from all over the world to end their life peacefully. Tells you about how remarkably tolerant society this is (there are tons of other examples I can see every day around me, but that's for another topic).

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#96

Post by autoexec »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #23
underseacables wrote: post #2

Robert Lowell once said that if humans had access to a button that would kill us instantly and painlessly, we would all press it sooner or later. I think this explains suicide better: For most, it’s an irrational act done in the spur of the moment. What I think is more interesting is when suicide is done as a rational act with planning, and consideration for others.

Suicide is not irrational in of itself. Facing 25-Life? Perfectly rational. Lost all your money and have no retirement? Still very rational. All you friends left you and you are completely alone to fend for yourself? Still rational. America needs to get over itself that life needs to be lived until a natural death. Not everybody wants to further deal with the excessive burdens of life. Suicide, when not done in a spu…

For the most part, I agree with you, and people should be free to choose their own death at any time for any reason (rational or otherwise), but "all your friends leaving you" may be something that can be changed. At the very least new friends can almost always be found. It wouldn't seem rational to me at least to end your life over that for most people. I can respect a person's right to make that choice in any situation, but I don't have to agree with it.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#97

Post by autoexec »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #55
Clubber wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"anything to make the pain go away" Sure, I think our rampant overdose problem and drug and alcohol over-use problem in general is a symptom of this. That's one of the reasons the war on drugs is so insidious, it punishes the people already suffering, which makes them suffer more, forcing a downward spiral that is almost impossible to get out of. All from a perceived moral failing. The US is pretty cruel to its citi…

I have not done much traveling, but Americans seem to self-medicate more?

Actual medication and healthcare services (especially mental healthcare) are not always affordable or accessible in the US. Recreational drugs are everywhere though, so plenty of people turn to them for whatever degree of relief those drugs can provide.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#98

Post by rmah »

saiya-jin wrote: post #95
Lammy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is illegal to kill oneself because it deprives the state of a taxpayer, and the state will not tolerate theft of its human resources.

Its way more primitive than that - christian moral code prohibits suicide as those will end up in hell. Then not-so-small part of population feels entitled to project their own righteous path unto rest of humanity while even feeling great about doing that 'in accordance to god's wishes'. Next thing you know, any abortion is illegal, heck in places like Poland even basic human rights are violated by exactly this kind…

To better understand people of differing beliefs, you have to temporarily pretend to accept their fundamental tenets.

To use your example, understand that most sects of Christianity teach that in order to gain entrance to heaven, one must accept Jesus as one's savior and at least try to follow the moral code promulgated by Christianity. People who do not will go to hell and suffer an eternity of torment. Understand, this is not a theoretical "what if" to them, they believe this to be true. Completely.

Thus, if you are a good person, would you not want to save others from eternal damnation? I mean, what kind of heartless human being would just let others go to hell without even trying a little? A good person, a kind person would therefore try to convert others to the path that would lead them to heaven.

Or similarly, if you believe a fetus is a human being then abortion is murder. Not the "termination of a fetus", but the literal equivalent of chopping up a newborn baby. If you understand that some people actually believe this, it is easy to understand why most pro-life arguments just seem facile to them. To them, those arguments are simply attempting to justifying the literal murder of innocent babies.

Putting yourself into the shoes of others and clearly understanding (not accepting as true, just accepting that they believe it is true) their underlying reasons is, IMO, critical to understanding what may, to you, be "crazy" or even "evil" positions.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#99

Post by [deleted] »

jsmith45 wrote: post #60
okareaman wrote: post #42

As someone who has struggle with suicidal ideation his entire life, whenever the subject comes up I try to educate people by quoting author David Foster Wallace (who commited suicide) with the best explanation: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not becaus…

One flaw with the analogy is that a pretty significant portion of suicides (successful or attempts) are impulsive. Many people who attempt it have literally no idea they will when they wake up that morning. A 2001 University of Houston study of survivors of near lethal attempts showed that 70% of them had only decided to do it an hour or less before the attempt, and 24 percent had only spent 5 minutes before the atte…

[deleted]

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#100

Post by tolbish »

FinanceAnon wrote: post #66

It's impossible to measure, but I wonder what % of suicides happens because of the culture that we live in. A lot of times when you read about someone commiting suicide it's blamed on that individual or their mental health - but is that really the root issue? How many of the suicides wouldn't happen if society was set up in a different way?

This is it. It would be quite the sight to see people with real money/power (Jeff Bezos, for instance) discuss that.
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