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To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans

deccanherald.com

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Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans

#121

Post by yuters »

jeroenhd wrote: post #7

Thi will never cure the underlying cause of suicides, of course, but adding even slight obstacles has proven to have an effect on suicide rates. Many suicides aren't thoughtfully planned out, but are just a combination of motive and easy opportunity. Even adding something as seemingly silly as a moderately difficult to climb fence to a bridge can reduce suicide rates. This is a fine measure, assuming that it's follow…

> This is a fine measure, assuming that it's followed by investment into mental health.

I don't know if it's a problem with the institution or a problem with the reporting but you could avoid a lot of "But they're not fixing the root cause, just the symptoms." outrage just by confirming this assumption. More engagement I guess...

Everyone knows that fixing the root cause is the way to go, it's weird to see that some people seem to think patching symptoms and fixing the underlying issue are two opposite things and you somehow only can do one or the other and not both.

Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans

#122

Post by rg111 »

andi999 wrote: post #50
rg111 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally the #1 institute in India. If they want, they can get ACs.

Are you implying only rich people can study there? (which could be, of course)

Nah, you have to be at the very top spots of standardized tests for admission at each level.

At undergrad level, there is the BS (Research) programme, where you get through the KVPY exam, a specialised test for HS seniors for entry to this school only. (You can look up papers if you want)

Then, for entry to grad school, you have to rank near the top (~200 , ~60-100 for AI) among 100k (for CS paper candidates). And then you have to pass rigorous technical, and personality interview(s).

So, they take in the best students.

This institute always ranks the highest in internal rankings.

The labs are top-notch, the uni is cash-rich, and the faculty is as good as US unis (maybe not Stanford, Ivies, etc.).

I know multiple people who went there and/or still lives there.

I hear only good things.

But, yes, the people who are opting for grad schools after a 4 year CS degree are almost always from upper middle class and rich families (studies in India are almost always funded by parents unless you were already earning in a full-time job).

So, yes, the populace you would find there are almost all from affluent families, but there are some people from financially challenged families, too.

The undergrad exams are very hard and you can appear only once. I blew my one chance because I had severe typhoid at the time of the exam!

Now, if my plans to get into a grad school in North America / EU does not pan out, IISc is right at the top of my choice list in India.

Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans

#123

Post by KrishnaShripad »

nosianu wrote: post #32
ashtonkem wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That wasn’t the point that people were making. The point they were making is that removing fans doesn’t address the underlying mental health issues. That is a fair argument, but not how I interpreted GP. In the context it seemed like they were arguing against any measure that removes means of suicide away from people because “they’ll just do it regardless”. > If anything, arguing that everyone is ok now because few…

> that removes means of suicide No, it's ab out removing important equipment. Fans in hot weather really help if you don't have AC, As far as I know it gets quite hot in (all of) India. Now their fans are gone as a "hack" for some other problem. At the very least, life of those students will be more uncomfortable. Ceiling fans also have a number of advantages over others, like being mostly noiseless and creating vert…

> As far as I know it gets quite hot in (all of) India

Nope this is a myth. India has all sorts of weather (from snowy winters to hot/humid/arid climate and everything in between). The institute this article points to is in Bangalore. Where temperatures are between 15 degree Celsius and 30 degree celsius throughout the year (only during peak summer does it touch 38 to max 40 degree celsius). You don't even need fans for most of the year. Not to mention Bangalore rains.

Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans

#124

Post by mcv »

rkk3 wrote: post #120
AdrianB1 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men usually do it with the intention of success, that explains the huge disparity (4 to 1) in results.

Intention of success is hard to know... What we do know is women use less lethal methods like pills, rather guys who use more lethal methods like firearms.

To get a better picture, it might help to compare men with easy access to firearms to men without such access.

Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans

#125

Post by belorn »

GavinMcG wrote: post #103
AdrianB1 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks as bikeshedding. If you want to eliminate suicides, finding and fixing the motivation to commit the act is the way to go. Having a fan on a ceiling is not an opportunity, just one of the many available means to an end and not a compelling one, so it is really a way to pretending to care while not doing the right thing.

Well, it turns out your intuitions on this one are wrong. Means restriction is one of the most empirically supported suicide-prevention strategies. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6191653/

The study do highlight some conditions. Means restriction is mostly effective when the suicide method is common and highly lethal, its more effective in reducing suicide for women then for men, and when the specific means restriction need to be culturally supported. The specific method also need to be popularly known among the population.

Import note that the study does actually not compare alternative suicide-prevention strategies. It is a meta study of mean restriction and not a meta study of suicide-prevention strategies. It does not compare the effectiveness of healthcare, reducing risk factors, hotlines and others suicide-prevention strategies.

Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans

#127

Post by aitchnyu »

Wildgoose wrote: post #97

Wouldn't it make more sense to alter the ceiling fans so that excess weight (e.g. a body) will cause them to detach from the ceiling, preferably also triggering an alarm?

I remember an Indian inventor who made a prototype, wonder how it went.

Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans

#128

Post by watwut »

rbanffy wrote: post #72
watwut wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim is that they do reduce overall suicide rates. They are not offseted by more suicides at other places or later on. Generally, as far as I can tell from reading about suicides and mental health, this is largely settled research. I dont understand why there is so much opposition to it on HN as if it was something new or controversial.

> I dont understand why there is so much opposition to it on HN as if it was something new or controversial. The HN crowd likes to question everything because this is one of the ways we learn. Being unfamiliar with well settled research on the subject is a contributing factor. Few would question the Earth is round por that birds aren't robots because we all know that, but when it comes to niche knowledge, the questio…

HN crowd instantly jumps to some claims with zero doubt. And instantly doubt others.

I don't even think it is about self interest or other such motivation.

Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans

#130

Post by ashtonkem »

mcv wrote: post #124
rkk3 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intention of success is hard to know... What we do know is women use less lethal methods like pills, rather guys who use more lethal methods like firearms.

To get a better picture, it might help to compare men with easy access to firearms to men without such access.

You can do that by comparing the rates in various states against the rate of firearm ownership. There does seem to be a positive correlation between firearm ownership and suicide in the United States, although other correlations are equally present and might be causative as well. Rural areas tend to to have high suicide rates[0], and tend to both be more poor and have more firearms than urban areas per capita.

Globally it's more complicated, as there are plenty of countries with fewer firearms than the US and more suicides, as well as countries with fewer firearms and fewer suicides. Material conditions (poverty, etc.), prevailing attitudes around substance use, hard to describe social well being factors, and stigma/quality of mental health care seem to be factors.

For my part, I think that easy access to a means of suicide, such as firearms, is one part of the equation, but not the dominant part. The dominant part is the prevailing experience in the population as a whole, as a population that feels like it's lost hope is more likely to attempt suicide on average than one that has not. But it does seem like wide spread misery and access to an easy and quick means of suicide is a very bad combination.

0 - https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1005-rural-suicide-...

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