The Highest Suicide Rate in the World • Hacker News Board

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#151

Post by dang » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

japhyr wrote: post #45

The history of alcoholism and suicide in Alaska goes back to the time of first contact with outsiders. When westerners first contacted Alaska Native tribes, those "explorers" tended to be people who were after valuable furs, and missionaries. These people were usually a mix of Russians from the west and Americans from the south. The outsiders brought with them diseases like tuberculosis and influenza, and these disea…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21070110.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#152

Post by dang » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

mitchty wrote: post #69

chrshawkes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is being downvoted? Clearly these people have no idea about the Plains Wars, Custer's Last Stand and Wounded Knee. They have absolutely been trampled on and worse (murdered).

Its being downvoted because its childish simplistic view of things. I grew up in Grant county, literally west of Sioux county. There are a lot of reasons for the high suicide rate in Sioux county, historical facts like Custer aside, unless you've lived in this part of the country, you really have no idea what its like there. Did westerners do a number on the Nakota/Dakota/Lakota/Sioux/Mandan/etc..? Duh, but thats not…

I know it's difficult to stay even about something so personal and intense, but please don't break the site guidelines like that, even when feelings are high. It only makes things worse, as other people then feel entitled to lash back more strongly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#153

Post by dang » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

chrshawkes wrote: post #75

mitchty wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its being downvoted because its childish simplistic view of things. I grew up in Grant county, literally west of Sioux county. There are a lot of reasons for the high suicide rate in Sioux county, historical facts like Custer aside, unless you've lived in this part of the country, you really have no idea what its like there. Did westerners do a number on the Nakota/Dakota/Lakota/Sioux/Mandan/etc..? Duh, but thats not…

I'm going to hold my tongue but I'd love to hear you say that to my face. You are not the only one affected by suicide, I don't care if you live in bumfuck or the East Coast. You know nothing about how suicide has impacted me personally. I'm making an observation about historical events which have led to the lack of opportunity.

I'm sure you also have good reason to feel personally intense about this topic. But please follow the site guidelines when posting here, especially on topics where feelings are understandably strong. Note the first one listed under "Comments": Be kind.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#154

Post by BurningFrog » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

okmokmz wrote: post #116

BurningFrog wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen it discussed several times, and believe it's at least a respected hypothesis. To what extent it's "established science" I don't know. I don't have any source links handy. Do you have any sources for your disbelief? :)

It's the onus of the one making the claim to back it up. My 30 second google search didn't turn up much one way or the other so I can't say for sure. I was curious if you had read any articles studies to make you believe that, or whether it was just your personal hypothesis. To me, it doesn't seem like that would be true, but I have nothing to back that up

> It's the onus of the one making the claim to back it up

Agreed. I don't have the time/energy to look up any sources, and I support anyone being skeptical about exotic claims made by anonymous forum posters :)

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#155

Post by SamReidHughes » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #93

BurningFrog wrote: post #77

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?

The actual difference in susceptibility to alcoholism is big evidence. And the idea that alcoholism might make you have 3% less kids per generation or whatever small difference would suffice when multiplied over a few centuries is very plausible.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#156

Post by gravelc » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

From my understanding, suicide rates among indigenous Australians are similarly high, particularly in remote communities. I suspect many of the same factors are at play.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#157

Post by oarabbus_ » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

Raphmedia wrote: post #64

heymijo wrote: post #35

If the commonality is that living in these higher latitude zones causes increases in suicide, what happens when/if the Earth hits +4C and the habitable zones become these very same areas? [see map linked below] There would be obvious confounders, like the despair of knowing that humans decimated the planet's habitability. https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/climat...

It is not the latitude that is causing the suicide rates. The at-risk populations just happen to be there. Causality does not equal causation.

Pretty sure you're the one who has it backwards, and extended periods of darkness and/or vitamin D deficiency have causal factors in suicide.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#158

Post by rovolo » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #119

kevadk wrote: 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…

From a statistical standpoint, it's logical that the most extreme numbers come from the lowest populations. So if the lowest rates are also in remote rural areas, this says more about statistics than anything else.

I'm not sure which of these two points you're trying to make:

1) These specific counties could be flukes because of their small population.

We can account for that by making multiple observations--i.e. look at multiple years of data--and seeing if the counties change rank. The visualization has yearly data for 1980-2014, and the specified counties are consistently high compared to the national average

https://vizhub.healthdata.org/subnational/usa

2) The 'rural' component of these counties isn't necessarily a factor, since the counties with lowest rates may be rural as well.

A bit of searching turns up a clear correlation between population density and suicide:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/How-population-density-a...

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#159

Post by jandrese » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

ianleeclark wrote: post #143

jandrese wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly not impossible that we've blinded ourselves to other problems by being so quick to blame all of their woes on colonialism however. The real world is rarely so simple. I find it a bit condescending when we try to pin all of the blame on western influence in the past, when these people are quite capable of fucking up their own lives without your help thank you very much. The idea that the old hunter-gath…

> I find it a bit condescending Cool. > when we try to pin all of the blame on western influence in the past, when these people are quite capable of fucking up their own lives without your help thank you very much. Guess we'll never know because of all the rape and pillage. I'll never understand how people come to so deeply fetishize the subjective that they're entirely willing to cast off the shackles of the objecti…

How is it not western supremacist thinking? This is simply the other side of the "all of the advances of the modern world are the result of superior western society", all of the problems of the world are the result of superior western society.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#160

Post by agota » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

p1esk wrote: post #62

CarlosCabrito wrote: post #37

Based on my anecdotal evidence, the major factors that seems to affect regions with high suicide rates are: - Isolation/ lack of community connection: Isolated individuals tend to have less social feedback loops, which impacts their perception of the world around them. - Alcohol and Drug abuse: This can be a byproduct of other areas, as an attempt to help alleviate the perceived suffering, boredom, etc. In my opinion…

This doesn’t explain Lithuania which is not isolated, has no alcohol/drug problem, and has enough sun.

I personally think that there might be something in Baltic genetic makeup that makes us more prone to suicide.

Lack of sun exposure probably does play a role, though, because I suspect that the average adult doesn't spend enough time in the sun during the time of the year when we can produce vitamin D.