why is the first world so suicidal?

[phattmatt]

So back when people were primitive living more like animals the suicide rate was much lower and I hear that in places where people dont have cellphones, internet, ipods, lexus, and are malnourished, uneducated and starving to death, the suicide rate is quite low.
Wtf
Why?

[aileron]

I'm rather interested in learning how you got such definitive statistics on suicide from the Neolithic Era.  Did they have some kind of shell-phone (à la, the Flintstones) suicide prevention hotline that tracked this on stone tablets?

[phattmatt]

Heresay from people who study primitive cultures and been to the third world

[Poison Tree]

Accepting, for the sake of argument, that the suicide rate is low in places where people are "malnourished, uneducated and starving to death" that wouldn't actually indicate that less people want to die in such places then in the first world. To put it simply, if someone (not on the extreme margin of society) from the first world wants to die they either get the cops to do it, drive the wrong way, maybe abuse drugs or they do it in such a way that it is noticeably a suicide (and some time the previous methods are also noticeably suicide). If someone is already on the edge of starvation and wants to die they simply starve to death in such a way that doesn't scream suicide.

[Jason78]

Back before we discovered fire, the only real way we had of killing ourselves was just by sitting around and waiting a long time.  Even then you were more likely to be taken by natural causes.

[Mr.Obvious]

This is essentialy Durkheim's theory:

Social cohesion has changed drastically as society itself changed from pack to tribe to tribe with a leader to estate to class to (on the face of it) meritocracy and through the constant evolution and revolution of technology and the effects this entailed for the relationships between people. Our mechanic solidarity has through that turned into an organic solidarity as well as through task differentiation which has resulted into an anomic distribution of labour. Through this our collective conscience has lost in dominance.

This led to a collective fear that society was breaking apart in Europe in the late 18th century. The rise in ammounts of suicides, he argued, were an indicator of this; He did his best to show that even something as personal as suicide is actualy socially determined (as through societal processes). (It must be said that as the first 'father' of sociology, he did his best to show that sociology was a science of it's own, destinct from others especially psychology. Making it that he tried to explain it solely from a sociological and societal point of view and thus gave too little credit to other dimensions.) With less social cohesion and less social control, suicide rates climb. Suicides changed from predormantly being altruïstic and fatalistic to selfish and anomic. (Which means that the reason for suicide has gone from  the having societies' values and norms too much intertwined with the self to having them too little intertwined with the self and gone from being bound and loyal to society too much to too little.) Which allowed for the bare number of suicides to rise.


Read Durkheim's 'De la division du travail social' and 'Le Suicide'. He is not without criticism, mind you. For example he's been said to have made an ecological error. But it's as good a place as any to start if you are really interested in this topic.

Just hope this interest isn't linked to the fact that your last topic was about how you became homeless. Is it?

[DunkleSeele]

So back when people were primitive living more like animals the suicide rate was much lower and I hear that in places where people dont have cellphones, internet, ipods, lexus, and are malnourished, uneducated and starving to death, the suicide rate is quite low.
Wtf
Why?

These data seem to contradict your theory. At best, we can say there's no clear correlation between suicide rate and standard of living.

[Johan]

So back when people were primitive living more like animals the suicide rate was much lower

Back when people were primitive and living more like animals almost everyone died before the age of 30. A shorter average life expectancy means less time available to contemplate killing yourself which in turn has to mean a lower suicide rate.

[DunkleSeele]

Wiki says, WHO said this: Looks weird.
(Data deleted by me to shorten the post)

Yeah, the site I posted also uses the WHO data. As I said, I can't see a clear correlation between standard of living and suicide rate.

[DunkleSeele]

I just noticed there isn't one developed country listed in the low column though.

Well, in the link I posted I see Italy, Greece, Kuwait, Arab Emirates (these two latter fare quite well overall in the global Human Development Index).

Still, I really don't think it's possible to associate directly standard of living and suicide rate, in one sense or another. And you're probably right that the reasons for suicide are very different from country to country.

[Jason78]

Only 37th? :(

[the_antithesis]

Makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with Greenland.

If it's boring, just fuck, kids.

[phattmatt]

Back before we discovered fire, the only real way we had of killing ourselves was just by sitting around and waiting a long time.  Even then you were more likely to be taken by natural causes.

how bout jumping off a cliff?

[phattmatt]

This is essentialy Durkheim's theory:

Social cohesion has changed drastically as society itself changed from pack to tribe to tribe with a leader to estate to class to (on the face of it) meritocracy and through the constant evolution and revolution of technology and the effects this entailed for the relationships between people. Our mechanic solidarity has through that turned into an organic solidarity as well as through task differentiation which has resulted into an anomic distribution of labour. Through this our collective conscience has lost in dominance.

This led to a collective fear that society was breaking apart in Europe in the late 18th century. The rise in ammounts of suicides, he argued, were an indicator of this; He did his best to show that even something as personal as suicide is actualy socially determined (as through societal processes). (It must be said that as the first 'father' of sociology, he did his best to show that sociology was a science of it's own, destinct from others especially psychology. Making it that he tried to explain it solely from a sociological and societal point of view and thus gave too little credit to other dimensions.) With less social cohesion and less social control, suicide rates climb. Suicides changed from predormantly being altruïstic and fatalistic to selfish and anomic. (Which means that the reason for suicide has gone from  the having societies' values and norms too much intertwined with the self to having them too little intertwined with the self and gone from being bound and loyal to society too much to too little.) Which allowed for the bare number of suicides to rise.


Read Durkheim's 'De la division du travail social' and 'Le Suicide'. He is not without criticism, mind you. For example he's been said to have made an ecological error. But it's as good a place as any to start if you are really interested in this topic.

Just hope this interest isn't linked to the fact that your last topic was about how you became homeless. Is it?

dont ask me questions like that.  Ive been rebuked for attention whoring and I'm trying to have most threads to be not about me.  Especially this thread.  Other than your imprudent question, very thoughtfull post.

[KUSA]

Matt,
You need an outdoor labor job like farming. The hard work and long hours would give you no time to think of suicide or other retarded thoughts.