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Comment by shin_lao | Hacker News Reader

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shin_lao

Can the secret to the country’s happiness be found in its communal pools?

If you use suicide rate as an indicator, Iceland doesn't seem to be so happy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

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On the other hand, it seems that suicide rates correlate poorly with results in research on happiness.

For instance, compare the results of Happiness Research Institute to the suicide rates. Some of the countries with highest suicide rates are also the happiest!

http://www.euronews.com/2015/07/02/finland-tops-european-cou...

You can imagine an odd pattern might develop where countries that have high suicide rates seem happier because their most depressed people irreversibly exclude themselves from the surveys. I wonder how strong the statistical effect is though.

In the developed countries where suicides are more common, the suicide rate is about 1-2 % of total mortality. I don't think that's enough to have any significant Darwinian impact.

There is a band where people commit more suicides. To depressed and you can't really think or plan. To happy and you don't feel the need. So, oddly enough suicide is worse at the happy end of the depressed spectrum. Especially when someone goes from a deep to a more moderate depression.

Iceland gets next to no sun November-February, leading people to depression, drinking, etc. It would likely affect you much more than the winter you know from other countries.

If anything, the social aspect of going to a hot pool in the winter is likely to keep people from committing more suicides.

Should be remembered too that cultural taboos have a big impact on whether suicides will actually be reported as such.

Exactly. It also affects how people commit suicide too. If there is a big cultural taboo against suicide then people will choose ways that look like accidents - say driving under a truck.

This explanation of little sun => suicides doesn't work, at least as directly as most would think:

Research on seasonal effects on suicide rates suggests that the prevalence of suicide is greatest during the late spring and early summer months, despite the common belief that suicide rates peak during the cold and dark months of the winter season.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_effects_on_suicide_ra...

Lack of sun causes more people to be depressive. Non depressive people are happier during late spring and early summer. Seeing other people happy increases the tendency to suicide in depressive people.

People with some level seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and people with depression react to change differently.

For people suffering from SAD symptoms typically start in the fall and stay during winter months. For people with clinical depression it's the springtime that throws them off.

I live in Finland and I have clear SAD symptoms in the fall and winter (very tired and low energy). Using Philips light therapy lamp completely fixes it for me as does trip to Spain in the winter.

As somebody that lives somewhere where SAD is a real thing, I can perhaps offer a glimpse into this. During the winter, it's so dark and cold, you get depressed. You stop going out, and you stop socializing. It's not that bad, at least you don't feel so worthless for not going outside since everything is awful outside.

Then spring comes along and everyone starts going outside. The weather is very good now. Everyone is having fun. Everyone but you. You are still stuck inside, afraid to come out, all depressed. That's the point where suicide start to seem like an option.

If that was true, Iceland's neighbors Norway and Sweden would have similar rates, but they're actually significantly lower and closer to countries like the USA. Iceland also has the highest percentage of people on anti-depressants in Europe. Nearly twice the rate of the EU average to be exact!

I think a lot of these "Isn't Iceland wonderful" articles are poorly sourced pop-science junk designed to get ad impressions. Iceland has a lot of problems and is a much more complex country than many give it credit for. Its not a bunch of elf worshippers living in the forest. They're a complex modern people with all the problems modernity brings. I also believe a lot of people with leftist political beliefs don't want to discuss the downsides of the Scandinavian welfare state as these criticism are, of course, critical of their own personal politics. So narratives that are critical of these politics don't get upvoted on sites like HN and Reddit which are largely left-leaning.

Its also worth mentioning that national happiness is tied very closely with income inequality, not pools. Even then, you can have a high level of general happiness and still have a relatively high suicide rate for reasons not fully understood, but I imagine self reporting of how 'happy' you are isn't granular enough to really tell us very much.

There's an ugly "noble savage" narrative to Icelandic people that I personally find offensive. I wish the media would stop pushing that narrative but I can understand that it gets ad impressions the same way Native American "noble savage" stories were so popular a hundred years ago in the USA. The reality is that both are reductionist and inaccurate and gloss over the very significant negative aspects of both their cultures.

Cites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/9789264183896-en/03/11/in...

http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/25/why-the-happiest-state...

Can people who are down voting this please explain edgy? I find the comparison to neighboring counties very ingesting and would like to hear why people disagree.

> If that was true, Iceland's neighbors Norway and Sweden would have similar rates

Keep in mind that their borders stretch much further south. Also the population distribution is biased towards the south.

Sure, saying that national happiness comes from pools is silly. But it doesn't change that their pools are amazing in many ways. After living in northern IS for a while, that's one thing I really miss.

It's likely that countries that experience the most depression have also developed and iterated through a range of cultural cures. We can all learn something from them.

more suicides means less depressed people walking around, so that could make a happier society.. (suicide boots from Futurama anyone?)

Suicide and suicidal ideation seem to act as a transmittable disease. At least that's what indigenous populations in the US are facing, an epidemic of suicides brought on by the loss of loved ones to earlier suicides.

The flippant comment about a cartoon show is unwelcome from my perspective.

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