Human beings are social animals. Most of us are disconnected from our “tribe” or “herd”. We aren’t meant to exist like this. The oligarchs have designed a system to make everyone hate each other … its working as intended.
Everyone is isolated watching corporate propaganda on magic boxes. No safety net, no community. Move from wage slavery location to propaganda consumption location in an enclosed box.
Human beings aren’t built for this lifestyle.
I have looked at my own life, and if I could choose one realistic change that would improve my quality of life, it would be more genuine (read: non-transactional) social connection. More friends, and more time with my friends. More sense of community.
My daughter is 15. She hates guns. Hates being around them, the sound, the idea of harm, etc. 4 weeks ago she came crying afraid for her friends and ICE. Last week she told me she wanted to learn to shoot. (I inherited a lot of guns. I bought a few myself. I come from a conservative family and I am the black sheep, the one that “changed”.) Still trying to get ahold of someone from Blazing Sword as an instructor. I want her to learn from someone with actual teaching instruction, rather than backwoods learning that I got.
Kids are terrified. Schools are scary, the law is scary, the dungeon dwelling creeps are now villified. I can see why suicide is increasing.
My teenage daughter and her friends were planning a walk out at school to protest ICE. She texted me that the school administrators and “resource officers” (aka cops in schools) physically blocked all the exits so nobody could leave.
The superintendent in Mustang Oklahoma suspended all of the kids who walked out.
As a kid I would have loved the free vacay from that.
Dude my wife has been wanting to get a gun. I’d talked about it in the past, almost in a hyperbolic way…always to be shot down by her fear of the guns.
But now that I’m thinking about it, I’m scared of having guns in the house.
My youngest is incredibly impulsive. My oldest has high anxiety. I don’t want them in my home, but I’m starting to think we may need one.
Anyway, she went to the range tonight with her brother. She hasn’t shot a gun since she was like 8 (.22 LR). She did alright.
But like you, I’d want to learn (and buy) from professionals. Particularly ones I’m politically aligned with. How the hell can you even tell?
She hasn’t shot a gun since she was like 8
Americanest statement ever
People in other countries don’t teach their kids to hunt or handle firearms at a young age?
Also, re-reading my comment from last night, I’m just now realizing the other ways this line could be interpreted…
My youngest is incredibly impulsive. My oldest has high anxiety. I don’t want them in my home, but I’m starting to think we may need one.
So allow me to clarify, so there’s no confusion…
- I want both my kids in my home
- I’m starting to think we may need one gun.
- My concern is upon the kids discovering the gun. Obviously I would keep it locked and secured, and I think they should know that it’s in the house, what it is, never to touch it, what to do if they see it, MAYBE offer to let them touch it to satiate that natural curiosity in a supervised setting (after I triple-check that it’s unloaded, chamber empty, safety on, etc)…but my kids are incredibly clever.
No, why would they?
Idk, my take is if a kid is in a house with a firearm, it’s better for them to know about, to know to respect it, and to know to never handle it without an adult.
Better a kid know, than to find out.
I imagine America isn’t the only country in the world with civilian-owned firearms?
Yeah this is the way. Knowledge and a healthy respect for the damage a gun can cause is a good thing to teach them. Don’t hide it. I’m pretty far left in my politics; but I do think its a good think we have the second amendment for exactly this reason.
Agreed. Honestly I think basic firearm safety and respect should be part of elementary school curriculum. Like second grade health class.
Bring in an actual firearm safety trainer. Use the SROs gun and have him
auditsupervise. Has to be the SROs gun though, because if there’s a black kid in the class, he might react instinctually when they pass around a disassembled gun.
This isn’t a concern in the rest of the modern world
I used to be the liberal gun salesman in a store full of right-wing crazies. I ended up being one of the top salesmen because word of mouth got around that I was there and didn’t spend the whole time being a dick and talking about how evil liberals and gay people were.
Get a hell of a gun safe; something impossible for an adult to pickup.
Something with a digital pin for entry, you can access that practically as quickly as out of a drawer.
But… I think talking to your children is more important, what they’re afraid of is actaully less realistic that someone randomly kicking your door in at night; and for most of the country ICE is a non-issue.
It’s not ICE I’m worried about. It’s conservatives without consequences, which seems to be where we’re heading. They hate anyone whose not in their gang.
conservatives without consequences
What’s that about? Trump literally just had his only playing card (Tariffs) ripped away by the supreme court and for some reason people are still afraid of unchecked power?..
Has anybody ever called tariffs his only or even primary playing card? I know Trump’s a big fan of them, but they have nothing to do with his election interference, free speech suppression, weaponized justice department, or directly putting federal money in his own pocket. Tariffs are how he’s raising prices and destroying the US’s international relationships and standing, but he has plenty of other options for that.
He’s celebrated the Supreme Court ruling by issuing even more tariffs. Did you miss that part? Do you live in a world where Trump listens to the courts?
He also literally raped dozens of children, at least, and still has power.
Until justice is served, consequences don’t exist.
Leave it to you guys to take circumstantial evidence and turn it into dozens of felonies.
A couple of police reports is “circumstantial evidence”.
We are talking thousands. His character and his response scream coverup.
You might see that if you looked up from the boot once in a while.
Cool story about your daughter being radicalized.
Dude shut the fuck up. You think the kids of conservative families aren’t learning how to shoot younger than 15? It’s time to wake up and realize that firearms training and discipline is going to soon be boon to those who have it.
I know several people who have died from firearms including family members. Gun obsessed morons have lead to more deaths than every single loss in every single war in US history in the last thirty years. The only person who should shut the fuck up is you.
My uncle took his own life when he was 19. He didn’t leave a note. He didn’t warn anyone. Just one morning my grandmother walked in and saw him hunched over on his bed completely pale, all the blood drained out of his face. There was a glass of cyanide in water on his bedside table.
It broke them. Neither of my grandparents recovered. Years later I was staying with them for a while and I overheard my grandmother say “we have our son back”.
Every suicide is like that. It’s like a bomb that shatters the lives of everyone close to you. It isn’t a solution. It doesn’t end the pain. It just passes it on to everyone else. But nobody would do it if the pain were bearable. “Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping.” There is no blame, no judgment, only tragedy and pain.
But people who survive and find help Will tell you that it gets better. That they’re glad they survived and that recovery is possible So if you are thinking of suicide, know that it is the worst possible option, no matter how hopeless it seems. There’s always another way.
Boils down to US labor laws, healthcare, maternity leave for both parents and income distribution.
Let’s not forget social media, climate change, being told the world will collapse when they get older, tHe ecOnOmY, Gun violence…
The only thing this “boils” down to is the world has gone to utter shite thanks to those who came before.
That’s true all that are issues but they are solveable
The solution is building everybody’s hope up. Also, no more lonewolves. We do with action, brainstorming together, and collaboration on every level. Nobody can do everything but everybody can do something. Nobody should be suffering alone
We see more people doing compared to before. We see how much can be done as we the people from local up to internationally keep doing.
I blame commercials and PSAs. I stopped watching TV in the mid-2000s and have ad blocker online. Watching TV today is like stepping back into Plato’s Cave. You don’t realize how psychologically damaging commercials are.
As an example, a few years ago I watched a live stream of the local news during a weather event with ads that couldn’t be blocked. Four hours later, I had seen the same commercial for an HIV drug at least 8 times. I had the thing memorized and I was very, very aware of HIV all day as it replayed in my brain. I don’t ever think about HIV. But I was forced to. I’m usually happy go lucky but after that ad, and other ads for a myriad of other drugs for diseases, plus PSAs reminding me how my life is a vicious jungle with death just a step away, I felt pretty bummed. Some of those PSAs are down right mean spirited.
Without ads, I can control my exposure to the horrors of the world. With ads, you’re at the mercy of the station or website drowning you in human misery. There probably needs to be a law to limit those kind of commercials. Like one PSA a week and one pharmaceutical commercial a day.
Blame social media. We have studies that show direct correlation between suicide rate and instagram, for example. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1461444819850106
Do they take into account the ads that are run on those sites?
I mean, everybody talks about how YT is killing everyone but I don’t get it. Unless… There was one day I sat down for breakfast, feeling great and started to play a light hearted review of a movie from Red Letter Media, about to eat a spoon full of Cheerios when an ad snuck past my ad blocker. It started off with “Cancer is different when it happens to a child.” I immediately closed my browser and sat there in stunned silence for five minutes with my chin on my lap. That ad just shat all over my day before it even began. When I got back to watching RLM, I was still thinking about kids with cancer for five minutes while Mike and Jay made jokes.
If people are bombarded by that kind of bipolar stream of videos while watching YT, I can see how it can ruin your life.
In the past when you were bullied it usually was contained to school. Now with social media, it continues in the safety of your home as well.
People, super especially kids, should not have social media with their real name. No one should use social media or the Internet in general with their real name unless they have bodyguards, a PR team and plan each post like a mission to Mars. There’s literally billions of people who can see you, and one of them is definitely going to be lunatic who can find out where you live and murder you in your sleep.
Eh, I refuse to be that scared.
Then you can’t blame social media if it goes south. You know the risks.
Beats the hell out of existing in a state of constant anxiety, of second-guessing every decision, of looking suspiciously at every stranger I pass.
I get it, context and all, but it’s very funny to me that you say you got bummed out by couple seconds of advertising for a cancer drug or treatment interrupting your video of bumbling hack frauds shouting about AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDS. Hell, Mike literally can’t help but laugh at geriatric women describing their health problems.
Like I said, it’s like stepping back into Plato’s Cave. It’s almost impossible to explain what it’s like.
It not so much the context. There’s no build up to “children with cancer”. Whether it’s about that or not, a block of advertising is a string of shitty short films specifically designed to be like a tear jerker to get a reaction out of you within 30 seconds or less. If you’re not used to that psychological tug of war, it almost physically hurts.
I have diabetes and the vascular disease that comes with it. If Mike and Jay make jokes about it, it makes it easier to live with. But if a commercial starts with a deep booming voice dripping with dread exclaiming “Diabetes”. Oh yeah, I forgot for a second that it’s a deadly serious disease that will probably kill me. Thanks commercial. I was living my life for a second.
No, this specifically is about how seeing content in which teens explain how to kill yourself has an impact on the probability that you try to kill yourself.
That’ll do it. But also having to hear about side effects 100 times a day, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, constipation. indigestion, belching, flatulence, fatigue, and dizziness, pancreatitis, gallbladder problems, kidney issues, and vision changes, thyroid tumors, including cancer, may not help.
Frankly, I’m just glad that there may be a tax on advertisin (and other things) to try and shore up health care costs in Michigan.
Agree, but I don’t think it’s limited to ads or PSAs, I think everyone with empathy is having a real hard time, because the news and the internet is constantly making them aware of, just, awful things. War and famine abroad and at home, all while like, 800 people in the world sit atop mountains of gold, doing absolutely everything in their power to destroy the planet and subvert democracy. We’ve been past the climate change “tipping point” for YEARS, and we’re still growing our oil and gas consumption. Anybody that cares about peoples suffering, is going to suffer, because we can’t empathise with everyone, everywhere, all at once. And yet, that’s what we’re asked to do, everytime we see the news. We’re still trying to play todays game by yesterdays rules.
The reality of the situation is that in the lifetime of your child, they will see complete economic and agricultural collapse. Why do you think that syphilitic pedo rapist wants Greenland so bad? Because projections show that giant iceball is going to be our best farmland in 60 years. Meanwhile any nations near the equator will be absolutely fucked. Chemical manufacturers in the US have so captured the government, that they’ve been poisoning all your water and food for decades without as much as a peep from regulators. Gotta get that new glyphosate weed and bug killer! nevermind it’s been banned by almost every country except our dumbasses.
if this were minecraft, I’d say that all we really need to do to save our species, is kill about 3-400 billionaires, redistribute their wealth, put a blanket moratorium on oil and gas usage, transitioning the worlds fleet of cars to electric (or just abandoning them all together in favor of trains), and establishing a one world government. Just think of the amount of artistic and scientific endeavors we could achieve if man were allowed the freedom to breathe and live. Imagine if you had universal healthcare, universal pre-k and daycare, imagine if you were given a 4 year college education just as a matter of course. Imagine if rent control existed, and a universal basic income to allow you a basic standard of living. Imagine how much happier you would be.
Hey, we’re only like 3-400 billionaires deaths away from achieving it.
…in minecraft
That’s part of it. Never earning enough to live is the other. The economic disparity in the US is greater than it was before the French Revolution. No matter how hard younger generations work, they can’t earn money at a rate that exceeds price inflation and experience. 60% of this country is doomed to never get ahead and the other 40% just don’t realize it’s so bad for everyone else they’re killing themselves.
It also goes the other way. I was watching a documentary on youtube on some ugly historical subject and I’d get these happy go lucky ads in the middle of it. “Uhhh, you want to associate your product with this?”
My roommate [content warning]
spoiler
just took his own life a few weeks ago. I had no idea what he was going through because we lived very separate lives. He always seemed like he was doing OK, but in the note he left he spoke of hiding mental health issues from me because he didn’t want to stress me out while I was dealing with my own shit. I wish I could go back and tell him to bother me.
This shit is really happening, and it’s hitting all age brackets. Even if you think someone is doing OK, it’s fine just to check on them. “Hey, how are you?” Be sincere. Don’t hit them with the “What’s up?” Everyone has a preprogrammed response. But give them eye contact and a genuine tone. It’s not something you’ll ever regret.
This is heartbreaking. I’m so sorry.
We weren’t evolved for this.
For thousands of years we were hunters and farmers and such, working hard in the summer and hibernating in the winter, saving night time for relaxation and fun (yes I am vastly simplifying and am aware of the exceptions).
So of course people are freaking miserable as drones for the 24-365 corporate hive.
BUT PROFITS ARE UP, UP, UP! STOCK MARKET 50k BABY
this is a great point. i always feel like i want to give up, but i feel like its literally just because im expected to be a corporate robot. despite having many issues of my own, i still really want to stick around. i love the world, i love nature, i dont want to stop experiencing it, but every day i go to work i lose all hope and its so hard to keep going.
Something critical to note is that help is not really out there. This is the kind of news article that usually gets people to post 988, but if you’ve called 988 you know how much of a joke it is. They will “triage” you, where you either get the cops called to take you to hell/inpatient or you spend half an hour plus on hold for someone to say “sorry that sucks :(“
Inpatient institutionalize increase suicide rates after release. You get maybe fifteen minutes of actual “treatment” while the rest of it is being treated like a criminal. Good luck keeping your job after disappearing three days without being allowed to access your phone!
It amazes me when I see TikToks and videos from patients in inpatient facilities in other countries. In the US, wanting to kill yourself means that you are a horrible criminal and you will be punished for it.
You forgot the part where they will charge you ~$1200/day to “hold” you against your will for 3 days.
I went to the hospital with ideation once, told them I had the plan, the means, and the desire. I was drunk as shit, which tended to be the times I was most suicidal. The intake guy was like… let’s just sober up a bit, you don’t want to be here, you’re not suicidal. Told me how bad it would get if they admitted me. For a while after that I was pretty pissed that he basically turned me back out coldly, then after time I realized he saved me a huge cost and burden. He was right.
You know what stopped the suicidal thoughts tho, getting sober, and having a kid slammed the whole book shut. I actually had to hit a therapist up because my only real coping skill was contemplating suicide, had to learn others.
This is true in many places outside US as well. Combined with the complete taboo and unwillingness to understand plus the horrible toxicity you see in some of these comments as well, it’s no wonder people (who might need it) don’t get help.
The hospitals don’t really help, either. I was made to feel almost worse than i did just being depressed.
The ones for children are even worse. Zero accountability. Adults with no reason to ever be supervising a child.
The society must persist…I am so sorry.
We lost a neighbor to suicide last year. The impact on the neighborhood has been substantial. So many lives touched in so many tangential ways.
My brother-in-law killed himself years ago. The effect on his family will never go away, like he threw a stone in a pond and the ripples never end.
Absolutely zero doubt Trump is largely responsible. Fuck this country.
Of course Trump made it worse faster, but the graph is clearly increasing over the entire time axis, in particular during the Obama and Biden administrations.
This is a symptom of the capitalist class continuously waging class warfare against the working class. Simply changing the figurehead will never be good enough to reverse this trend or any of the 69 bajillion other graphs that show us that for the working class, our world is falling apart!
The Epstein class, who shapes the law but is not beholden to it
The article talks about a rise since the 1990s. But yes, more spikes during Trump terms.
largely
hes just the latest symptom of a larger systemic problem.
And yet has personally increased mental health problems by a lot
Russia is behind this.
Are we great again yet?
This feels weirdly sensational which is crazy since it is a article about a heavy topic
In 2023, suicide rates were highest among 85+ and among men.
Rates are also rising among rural white men.
- Easy access to firearms. Men are more likely to use a gun than woman though this is changing.
- Social isolation. Worse in rural areas and among single men.
- Old social nets like church and fraternities are shrinking. Black men in rural areas are more likely to attend church where social support is available.
- Lack of mental health care. Men are less likely to seek out mental health care even when it is available.
- Financial stress (job loss, status loss, pressure)
Old social nets like church and fraternities are shrinking. Black men in rural areas are more likely to attend church where social support is available.
As an atheist this is pretty much the one thing I think religion is good for. A sense of community for those who attend regularly.
I think the other good thing it’s for is controlling the village idiots. Now it just empowers them.
I mean at 85+ it’s kinda just checking out and pretty reasonable. My retirement plan is a 12 gauge and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to see that age and all the hellish torment living that long entails.
Smith and Wesson also carries my health insurance! They are a fantastic provider. Very cost-effective.
Easy access to firearms.
This is a BS statement. Firearms have ALWAYS been easy to get in the U.S. It used be even easier than it is now. Yet it’s NOW that we have this increase in the suicide rate. Maybe try looking at reasons for suicide such as the the divisions in this country rather than just blaming a tool.
Men are more likely to use a gun for suicide, as they have always been, for the same reason they go to a store with something in mind to buy, buy that something then walk out. Men focus on the goal so they obviously go for the most effective method of achieving the goal.
In 2023, suicide rates were highest among 85+ and among men.
These are the points the comment you replied to lead with. It didn’t claim that gun availability is a reason for recently increased rates, but a part of the reason men in (rural) US have and have (always had) higher rates than non-men and non-US. They have a relatively low risk fast option available. Just like you said.
Myriad other reasons also move statistics in various ways.
Denial
Yeah. You should move past that.
