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Comment by daenz | Hacker News Reader

Let's be honest here...in this social climate, who looks at a graph that essentially says "primarily young white men are killing themselves more" and thinks it's bad? Be honest, how much sympathy does that particular demographic get? My point is: do you think that kind of response (lack of sympathy) is having a positive or negative effect on the graph?

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Do you really think real people (rather than hyper-partisan internet trolls who may be sockpuppeting both sides) are sincerely cheering a rise in white male suicide?

Not cheering the rise of white male suicide, but viewing it as a side effect of an important social shift which topples the historical dominance hierarchy

I think it might be orthogonal. The problem exists for everyone but is only visible in this demographic because it is balanced out in the others by improvements from recent social change.

It seemed to be important enough to cover in this news article, and then important enough for 50+ (as of this comment being made) comments to be made on hacker news about it.

>Be honest, how much sympathy does that particular demographic get?

Arguably more than any other group.

As someone who has both struggled with depression and recently was a young white guy, I am very sympathetic to the problems that my juniors face.

The idea that these people aren't sympathetic is, of course, very harmful.

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