The Highest Suicide Rate in the World • Hacker News Board

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#161

Post by milchek » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

_yxi6 wrote: 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.

There is more to it than just the weather, as others have pointed out. However, your comment reminded me of "Winter-over syndrome" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter-over_syndrome) - worth a look for those interested in the effects of long periods of cold and dark isolation on human psychology.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#162

Post by rconti » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #86

aivisol wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, however if you look in the European context, Southern countries have lower rates despite having lower standard of living. So the climate cannot be completely ruled out, it is perhaps one of the factors.

lower standards only applies if you think about money. In every other respect, life is more pleasant in the mediterranean than in nordic countries. Source: I'm from the mediterranean and I think life in California is shit, even if I make way more money than before.

Except that doesn't show up in the data about well-being, where the nordic countries outperform the mediterranean ones.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#163

Post by rconti » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 10:33 PM UTC

username90 wrote: post #67

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Lithuania has he same problem as all the Nordics, dark gloomy weather year round. I wanted to emigrate to Sweden due to the high quality of life but the dark, drizzly, windy weather really put me off and some locals I talked to said they were really depressed by it and were either trying to emigrate or work remotely from Southern Europe. In the Blatics it's probably worse as the economic situational is not po…

Suicide is actually correlated with lots of sunshine and high temperatures even in colder countries like the Nordics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_effects_on_suicide_ra... People tend to say that they get depressed by the winter, but I believe that it is similar to how people tended to say that exercise was bad for you not too long ago. Cold helps against depression in many cases, for example cold showers.…

Regardless, seasonal affective disorder is still a thing. Maybe they don't kill themselves until the spring, but that doesn't mean the lack of sunlight isn't a (delayed) cause.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#164

Post by ben509 » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #109

ben509 wrote: 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?

TBH, I fired that off without fully getting the context. It's true, but not wholly relevant.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#165

Post by natalyarostova » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

ianleeclark wrote: post #147

natalyarostova wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you're saying. Who is saying anyone helped anyone else when children's hands were chopped off in the Congo?

I quoted you.

You quoted me, then made a very insincere and uncharitable implication of what I said.

I don't have any ideology, I was just pointing out how post-hoc explanations always fit the data. But that you could take other examples and come to opposite conclusions.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#166

Post by Guthur » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 10:59 PM UTC

unfocused wrote: post #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…

I'm not sure there is really a viable route back. A lot of the traditions and ecosystem that worked before may not be there.

I believe it's more that just the oral tradition. The small insular nature of the communities is also lost and I don't believe the traditional approach would scale to the large urban centres they find themselves in.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#167

Post by autoexec » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 11:28 PM UTC

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #132

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

True, but it helps that moths can lay thousands of eggs one or more times a year. Evolution can be quick but people reproduce very slowly.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#168

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 11:53 PM UTC

unfocused wrote: post #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…

Unlike knowledge stored in books, oral traditions and knowledge can't be "got back to".

Once the line is broken, it is gone.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#169

Post by cwkoss » Thu, Sep 26, 2019, 12:15 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #150

cwkoss wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indigenous Americans made alcoholic fermented beverages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_Native_Americans#P...

Sure, but I think it was expensive and complicated enough with their technology that becoming an alcoholic was very hard, compared to the modern world with unlimited supply of cheap bottles of hard liquor.

I agree, was curious so did some digging and found the results interesting.

In addition to lower concentration, I'd imagine the mollusk and tobacco wine wouldn't have been as palatable as contemporaneous whiskey, but I'm not a fan of seafood in general so YMMV. Sounds like indigenous peoples in temperate climates tended to only use alcoholic beverages ceremonially rather than multiple-times-daily of colonists.

Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

#170

Post by luckydata » Thu, Sep 26, 2019, 12:30 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #162

luckydata wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lower standards only applies if you think about money. In every other respect, life is more pleasant in the mediterranean than in nordic countries. Source: I'm from the mediterranean and I think life in California is shit, even if I make way more money than before.

Except that doesn't show up in the data about well-being, where the nordic countries outperform the mediterranean ones.

They are wrong. Most of those surveys are designed by people with a very clear view of what life should be that doesn't reflect the values of less materialistic societies.

A good example is the corruption index published every year, when the US always comes out as one of the least corrupt countries in the world. We all know for a fact there's tons of corruption in this country, we just decided to legalize most of it. Doesn't mean the US can teach anything to any other country about corruption.