Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says • Hacker News Board

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#311

Post by astrange » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:39 AM UTC

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #210

pdimitar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not arguing with the desired outcome. But what I've seen more often than not is that people get addicted to the pills and never do stand on their own feet again. And I agree with your second paragraph completely. I am sick of society pretending that people are "sick". They are not. They are responding naturally to an increasingly hostile world.

I'm sick of people pretending that they know more about brain chemistry and human behavior than the thousands of professionals and the decades of research devoted to the topic, but here we are with your dismissive posts. Some people eventually get off the medications. Some can't function without them. Your attitude is akin to being upset because once a paraplegic is in a wheelchair that they never just get up and try…

Note that the right amount of knowledge to have about "brain chemistry" is none; we don't know how antidepressants work. The difference is uninformed commenters seem to think it's all serotonin levels.

They are effective though.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#312

Post by cma » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #306

wruza wrote: post #259

This pandemic is very strange mental-wise, all my doctors note that. The US, as far as I understand, has huge lockdowns and that may be the factor, but in my country it's called "an advisory self-isolation" and everyone basically lives their life like before, except wearing masks in public places and mandatory vaccination to visit a mall or a restaurant (also "manageable"). I'm not a social person (age almost 40), an…

You're not the only one and more level-headed psychologists have warned about this pretty early last year. People are bombarded with horror news about ever rising case numbers of this 'killer virus' on a daily basis. Read up on mass psychosis and mass psychology in general. There are many documented cases in the past, but this time with the internet and our ever more connected world we seem to have a case gone global…

> It's reported when water is tested positive for sars-cov-2, but then negative aspects of the panic are downplayed by for example reporting the increase in suicide attempts as 22.3% + 39.1% in this article. As we know from surveys the average reader will not understand this adds up to around 70% more suicide attempts since the start of the pandemic, because most people aren't good at math.

I think the article split those numbers out because one was in summer and the other year over year in winter: you can't just sum them because among other reasons there is a seasonality component to suicide I believe.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#313

Post by _RPL5_ » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:41 AM UTC

asteroidbelt wrote: post #285

basisword wrote: post #278

There are lots of attempts to explain this in the comments: lockdowns, lack of socialisation, pre-pandemic poor mental health, etc. But is not it not much more simple? We were and are in the midst of a global pandemic. A once is a lifetime catastrophic event. The kind of life changing event not experienced in the west since World War II. Of course that's going to cause mental health issues in almost everyone (to vary…

> A once is a lifetime catastrophic event This is one point of view. A different point of view is this is comparable to bad flu year, and all hysteria is caused by msm. > It has affected our lives in so many ways It has. But not the pandemic, but government and media overreaction to it.

Next you'll be asking whether lockdowns caused more harm than good. Oh-oh. I think we are 10 years too early for that particular discussion.

This is a fascinating topic, though, and I can't help myself. I have two competing perspectives on this:

1. Covid is deadly, but not that deadly, certainly not to children and younger (2. Covid is deadly, and if not for the lockdowns, it would have killed a lot more people than it did. The number of lives saved by shutting down the economy far outweigh the cost of the lockdowns. If we didn't shut down and later push people to vaccinate, millions would have died in the US instead of hundreds of thousands.

Anyone with an educated opinion wanna weigh in? Which perspective is correct?

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#314

Post by _RPL5_ » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:43 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #303

asteroidbelt wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A once is a lifetime catastrophic event This is one point of view. A different point of view is this is comparable to bad flu year, and all hysteria is caused by msm. > It has affected our lives in so many ways It has. But not the pandemic, but government and media overreaction to it.

> A different point of view is this is comparable to bad flu year, and all hysteria is caused by msm. That is not point of view. That is a lie. Point of view is different interpretation of same facts or different values attributing to them. Some things however are just lies.

> this is comparable to bad flu year

Maybe he means the Spanish flu /s

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#315

Post by astrange » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:44 AM UTC

tonguez wrote: post #18

paperwasp42 wrote: post #10

I'm not even a parent, but I've been incredibly distressed by this trend. Several of my good friends have had their daughters attempt suicide (luckily, none have succeeded, although 2 extremely close calls). It's been utterly gut-wrenching to watch these talented, kind, ambitious girls spiral into shells of their former selves. Luckily, all my friends are fellow techies who are upper-middle class, and can afford medi…

The problem with framing this as a mental health crisis is that it implies the solution is in mental health services. Is there a mental health crisis in North Korea? No their lives are just terrible. Therapy isn’t going to help people in North Korea. Similarly the worse material conditions are in the West the more people are going to kill themselves. I think it’s about 200 a day in the US and it has been for many man…

> Is there a mental health crisis in North Korea? No their lives are just terrible.

Do they even have poor mental health there? It's quite likely, but most people throughout history lived in terrible conditions, sometimes resorting to cannibalism way back in the day[1], and probably did not have depression from it. It's all about relative expectations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_antecessor#Cannibalism

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#316

Post by dirtyid » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #268

throwawayboise wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a mandatory retirement age for government. 65 sounds about right.

They kind of have that in China for public officials, if I'm not mistaken, and it's a big thing that Xi is the first of their leaders in a long time who seems to ignore it. On further research it's a rule imposed back in 2002 [1]: > In 2002, then-President Jiang Zemin tried to clear the ranks at the top of the party by instituting retirement age limits: 68 for top leaders and 65 for senior level officials. That rule…

BBC article has some mistakes.

NOMINATION age between is 58-67. Lower for deputy / provincial levels. Provincial leaders has to retire by 60-65. National leaders have no formal retirement age, but are expected to retire at 70-75. There's also other norms like "seven up, eight down" for standing committee. Xi hasn't broken any age limit rules / norms so far, despite heavy speculation (Qang Qishan in 2017). I would say age limit is treated also sacricant vs term limits, which doesn't even apply to the most important positions for ruling PRC in case of Xi - general secretary, chairman of PLA. There's no good reason for west to throw conniptions over Xi being a dictator for life for another 5-7 years.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#317

Post by astrange » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:47 AM UTC

RealityWinner wrote: post #207

Manuel_D wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere? I suspect few people actually read the report [1]. They asked teen girls (and boys) how Instagram made them feel. The most common response for girls was "no effect" 43%, followed by "somewhat better" 29%, then "somewhat worse" at 18%, then "much better" at 8%, and lastly "much worse" at 3%. The media conspicuously ignored that substantially more girls felt that Instagram made them feel better than worse. 1.…

I don't trust any research Facebook releases about the impact of their own platform and would take such with a grain of salt. There is no incentive for them to ever release negative results.

That's easily spotted if they preregister their experiments.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#318

Post by simplestats » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:49 AM UTC

medvezhenok wrote: post #174

simplestats wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assets going up in value isn't really a wealth transfer by itself. The buyer is just exchanging a lot more cash for an asset worth a lot more. Their wealth doesn't change overall. Rents are a different story perhaps. The unfair property taxes in California and similar states is certainly wealth transfer though, which got vastly more unfair.

It is actually a wealth transfer. Think of houses as denominated not in USD, but in labor hours (let's say median wage). If the house price appreciates in labor hours, that is actually a wealth transfer from those performing labor to those holding on to capital (and vice versa). In reality it's a little bit more complicated since the financing cost of the house has to be considered (principal + interest over the life…

So labor is wealth now? This is the same argument again. I could also discover oil on my property, or build a bigger house on it with my own labor, or all the other houses could get destroyed in an earthquake. Or, on the other side, someone could invent a new process or tool that makes your skills obsolete. Or a million immigrants could show up and bid labor prices down. These all change the amount of labor I will want in return for my house. But none are wealth transfer. Labor is how wealth is produced but it is not wealth itself.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#319

Post by astrange » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:50 AM UTC

fny wrote: post #12

KiranRao0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collective behavior in response to COVID was a life transfer from the youth to the elderly.

Both are true. Fiscal and monetary stimulus drove financial assets owned mostly by 40+ and retirees to the moon. House prices have become more unaffordable just as millennials (already saddled with college debt) are getting ready to buy their first homes. Inflation has eaten into real wages even with increases. We also locked up an entire generation of zoomers in a house for two years. I was all for lockdowns in earl…

The assets went up because the US economy is healthy. This is a much better alternative than 2008 where we failed to fix deflation. Basically printing money is awesome.

> Inflation has eaten into real wages even with increases.

Interestingly not true for homeowners because of fixed-rate mortgages. Or people not currently purchasing a car.

Re: Youth suicide attempts soared during pandemic, CDC report says

#320

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 9:51 AM UTC

pdimitar wrote: post #165

aogaili wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of medication is not to always numb your brain but temporary ease the pain until you can stand on your own feet again. When life goes so wrong for some people and their brain pain signal is so high that you can't even get out of bed, those medications help. It helps them to sleep and think less until they start to think correctly. The issue today, is that people are expected to be productive all the time de…

I am not arguing with the desired outcome. But what I've seen more often than not is that people get addicted to the pills and never do stand on their own feet again. And I agree with your second paragraph completely. I am sick of society pretending that people are "sick". They are not. They are responding naturally to an increasingly hostile world.

[deleted]