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Comment by elorant | Hacker News Reader

You know, a winter that lasts forever doesn't sound such a bad thing after all in terms of productivity. I live in Greece and every year when the summer approaches the last thing I want is staying inside and code.

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The problem is that an eternal winter would eventually have your employees killing themselves one by one. I imagine that on the long slide down depression and into despair, productivity is bound to suffer. You also have to look at alcoholism rates in countries all over the world with extreme winters, and it's not a happy statistic.

The Greenland stats seem to imply that the actual killer is the corresponding awfully bright summers. As someone who lived slightly south of the arctic circle for almost half my life, I'd be inclined to agree with that theory.

Really?! Is there some article or study that talked about this, because I'd love to read it. To be clear, I'm not doubting you at all, I just want to learn more about this.

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

> According to a report published in the Science Daily in 2009, the suicide rate in Greenland increases during the summer. Researchers have blamed insomnia caused by incessant daylight.[10]

One hypothesis some suicide researchers have floated is that suicide has multiple aspects; the dark winters damage people emotionally while reducing energy, and then when the light comes flooding back, their energy levels recover before their emotions. Result: suicide. Apparently there's some analogies in depression treatment where you're briefly more likely to commit suicide after a treatment starts working. Here's one paper on the topic: Vyssoki et al 2014 http://www.gwern.net/docs/2014-vyssoki.pdf "Direct Effect of Sunshine on Suicide". There might be something similar at play in Greenland.

That's interesting, and almost seem related to what you see in the first weeks of anti-depressant therapy (especially in teens). The depression and distorted thinking haven't changed, but they get a huge blast of energy. It's one of the possible explanations for why the first few weeks on an anti-depressant are particularly risky in terms of suicide.

It does take that odd combination of pain and energy to drive people to end their lives, not just despair and enervation.

No, it's an advantage: they're not distracted by the good weather and they're not tempted to go outside. So people stay in front of their computer working :-)

...Until they die? Then again, if you really invested in full-spectrum lighting indoors, and build a large campus...

Stop making me think evil things! lol

Maybe, but you'd have to reconcile that with California's good productivity and good weather.

SF specifically is notorious for its mild climate, no? Average high in July (the hottest month) is 23 degrees. Compare that with e.g. 31 for DC or 34 for Athens.

That's 73, 87, and 93 degrees for the metric impaired...

Relevants xkcds: https://xkcd.com/526/ https://xkcd.com/1643/

"The worst winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" -- Mark Twain

That was the summer following a volcanic eruption, indeed, it snowed during that summer!

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

also: While usually attributed to him, the actual source of these words is unknown and there is no evidence that Mark Twain ever said this.

Well September and October are warmer than July usually.. Yes its never swimming weather but its (almost) year around t-shirt during the day light jacket at night weather. No AC or heater needed year around (heater maybe 10 nights a year)..

To be clear I listed the hottest monthly average high for each of those cities - it was July for SF, August for Athens and I don't remember for DC.

Californians have stock options. They must guard them by being in the office at all times.

My bet would be air conditioning

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