Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

hhs.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 354 posts

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#281

Post by dntrkv »

autoexec wrote: post #150
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. This is actually one of the big hurdles to getting some people into therapy/treatment/medication that they need: They imagine a lot of catastrophic scenarios about what could possibly happen if they get the help they need, which creates a gridlock that traps them in their situation. From a pure risk management perspective, the highest risk by far in these scenar…

> Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. Practically speaking, these kinds of things are happening every day. I would agree that it might be better to take the help and live accepting the lifelong consequences of your actions in seeking that help. A life where you lose your children, lose job offers, or have your deepest troubles exposed to the world might easily still be a life worth living. The rea…

How will you lose your children? How will you lose job offers? Children aren’t even taken away where there is known abuse going on. Lose job offers? How would a company even know you were seeking help?

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#282

Post by bobsmooth »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #259
chrsig wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could be as bothered by the suggestions as you. I have someone in my life where it would be a humane option, and arguably the only humane option. There are some situations that cause a person to experience a life of permanent suffering. I don't think I agree with the suggestions, but I certainly understand them, and often find myself contemplating what a better societal solution could be. The solution space…

If someone really wants to do it, they don't need a government-run apparatus to hold their hand. And if they do need that, then they don't really want to do it.

What if they're so sick they're literally incapable of holding someone's hand?

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#283

Post by bongobingo1 »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #280
Lammy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> state authorized suicide IMO there's no way this would ever become any sort of common occurrence, because the state would never willingly give up its human capital on that scale. "Again, when a man in violation of the law harms another (otherwise than in retaliation) voluntarily, he acts unjustly, and a voluntary agent is one who knows both the person he is affecting by his action and the instrument he is using; an…

> the state would never willingly give up its human capital on that scale The same state that sends its youth off to die in wars? Or that executes them when it so chooses?

No post body was provided.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#284

Post by troyvit »

starkd wrote: post #254
kromem wrote: post #242

I wonder at how proving a legal path to ending life for anyone (with a lengthy waiting period and multiple psych sessions) would reduce the instances of impromptu suicide. My suspicion is that the availability of a legitimized path to the same result, but with a far less traumatizing method for both the individual and their loved ones, might allow for transitioning people into getting help when that's not the outcome…

Call me a puritan, but I'm pretty sure just giving people a way to readily kill themselves is not the way to address the problem. You do the exact opposite of that. Some things are absolutes. This is one of them.

Really? I think that kind of thinking is what has allowed > 7 billion people to run rampant over the earth, screwing up everything they see and just generally turning it into the sinking cesspool that makes so many people want to kill themselves to begin with. There's nothing absolute about human life except that it's a net negative for the planet unlike any other life here.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#285

Post by Lammy »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #280
Lammy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> state authorized suicide IMO there's no way this would ever become any sort of common occurrence, because the state would never willingly give up its human capital on that scale. "Again, when a man in violation of the law harms another (otherwise than in retaliation) voluntarily, he acts unjustly, and a voluntary agent is one who knows both the person he is affecting by his action and the instrument he is using; an…

> the state would never willingly give up its human capital on that scale The same state that sends its youth off to die in wars? Or that executes them when it so chooses?

An unwinnable war still benefits the state if it helps maintain hegemony over their ~⅓ of the world's public consciousness. Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#286

Post by autoexec »

dntrkv wrote: post #281
autoexec wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. Practically speaking, these kinds of things are happening every day. I would agree that it might be better to take the help and live accepting the lifelong consequences of your actions in seeking that help. A life where you lose your children, lose job offers, or have your deepest troubles exposed to the world might easily still be a life worth living. The rea…

How will you lose your children? How will you lose job offers? Children aren’t even taken away where there is known abuse going on. Lose job offers? How would a company even know you were seeking help?

you lose your children when in the middle a custody battle your partner (or ex-partner) subpoenas your phone records, or even your medical records, and uses that to help convince a judge that you're unfit due to your mental health issues and that those issues will have an impact on your child. (see https://dadsdivorce.com/articles/parents-mental-illness-chil...). The stigma that exists surrounding mental illness makes losing your child far too easy.

How would you lose a job? Your would-be employer faced with two otherwise equally qualified candidates pays a third party to run a background check that includes information lifted from your social media sites (https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/social-media-survey-201...) and collected from data brokers.

> Data brokers will often combine all the information outlined in these two lists to build complex profiles about each of us. These profiles are used for an increasing number of purposes, from serving targeted advertising to crafting insurance policies to providing background checks for employers. (source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/its-a-data-brokers-world-a...).

The FTC has warned about this kind of thing (https://www.nydailynews.com/sdut-ftc-puts-background-check-s...) but it still happens.

Maybe you called the suicide hotline using your cell phone and some sketchy app (like a call blocking app or facebook: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/25/17160944/facebook-call-hi... or even a stalker app: https://news.softpedia.com/news/stalker-android-apps-with-th...) sold your contacts/call history or maybe your phone company did it. See this example from the article here: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/att-accused-of-v...

> "[T]he sale of CPNI to the government isn’t our only concern—when we did a little more poking around, we found that all four major mobile carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon) have privacy policies that indicate they believe it is OK to sell or share similar records to anyone,"

It's not really a question of "how is anyone going to know?". Every communication you make is logged forever and shared (read: sold) with "partners" and turned over to the state. Someone, somewhere, will absolutely have that data. You aren't allowed to know who has it, where they got it, how accurate it is, what they are doing with it, or how/if it's being secured, but it is out there and it will follow you for the rest of your life.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#287

Post by yellowapple »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #243
yellowapple wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt the $12k that was billed was paid by insurance company. Typically, the provider bills a ludicrous amount, and then they apply a ridiculous “adjustment” for being a subscriber to the insurance plan, and then you pay per your deductible/coinsurance/out of pocket maximum situation. That doesn't make the fact that they bill such a ridiculous amount in the first place any less unacceptable.

It is a well established practice in the US that billed prices have no bearing on reality and if you are insured, you have no liability to pay them, hence out of context for the purpose of discussing the reasonableness of the insurance negotiated price (which is well established to be real).

> It is a well established practice in the US that billed prices have no bearing on reality and if you are insured, you have no liability to pay them

And if you're uninsured? Or your insurance refuses to cover it? Or it does, but with a high deductible?

My point is that the "well established practice" in question is useless at best and outright detrimental (to say the least) on society. Why even bother throwing out that number unless there's an expectation that someone would pay it?

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#288

Post by throw321501508 »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #245
kromem wrote: post #242

I wonder at how proving a legal path to ending life for anyone (with a lengthy waiting period and multiple psych sessions) would reduce the instances of impromptu suicide. My suspicion is that the availability of a legitimized path to the same result, but with a far less traumatizing method for both the individual and their loved ones, might allow for transitioning people into getting help when that's not the outcome…

No, if someone has lost their motivation to live, that is the fault of the community around them, and it’s the responsibility of society to fix the failures that led to that loss of motivation. The path to fixing these failures is not to offer state-sponsored (or at least state-sanctioned, as your comment implies) lethal injection for anyone who asks for it. That’s sweeping the problems under the rug. I’m not religio…

This isn't the only reason people want to kill themselves. My dad had cancer, and basically got locked into a ruined and barely usable body (in that he wasn't fully bed ridden but couldn't take care of himself or speak).

If he lived in a place with compassion he could have ended it cleanly. He didn't. Where he lived killing himself would be illegal, and would have been much harder dealing with the legality than otherwise. He had life insurance that swapped when he ended his job, he had to die naturally so it would pay out for us because there's no law protecting it.

So instead he suffered for around a year. He was kind, he didn't tell us (the family) what was going on, but about a month after he had the surgery which really f*cked him up to get rid of a tumor, the tumor was back. He just told the doctors no when they tried to help further, and died after 8 months of suffering. One might consider it suicide by inaction, but for some reason that's condoned and seen as strong.

My mom didn't understand this until a few years back when her memory started going and she was losing herself, and talked about how unpleasant life was and there being some alternative. when I mentioned that dad had wanted to as well (he didn't tell her, she couldn't handle it at the time). She expressed regret she didn't live somewhere else. Then she forgot about the discussion the next day. She spends her days with about 3 minutes of memory at a time and will till she passes.

End of life isn't just about suicide. They both wanted to live, but not in the irreversible physical form they were in. Neither legally had the option. Neither actually did it though. I bet my dad would have and I don't blame him if it was socially acceptable and legal.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#290

Post by Georgelemental »

cmg wrote: post #69
Kye wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see people recommend Trans Lifeline all the time. Are you able to offer specifics on this?

I'm hesitant to answer this because a lot of what I'd have to say can't be corroborated except for people who work or worked there. I'll summarize, with the understanding that I left a month after the 2020 election (I gave my notice in October 2020 and stayed on to get the organization through potential security issues around the election). - A culture of internal anti-Blackness. During the uprising of 2020, staff an…

> A culture of internal anti-Blackness > I had a bug in some software I wrote […] met with absolute hostility - shouted at in meetings, labeled a white supremacist and removed from leadership

I wasn't there, don't know all the details, but this sounds like a classic case of Woke Monster eating itself.

Post reply on HN