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Comment by swebs | Hacker News Reader

Some advice I've found helpful is to quit Twitter and Reddit, while also unfriending particularly misandrist and racist (yes, anti-white racism is still racism) Facebook friends. I've found myself a lot happier when I cut out people who would constantly try to demonize me for various physical traits. If you have the mass media constantly telling a group of people that they're inherently evil, of course it's going to cause suicides.

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The article discusses problems for white men without a college education, including drug overdose and suicide. Drug overdoses in young men will have a strong effect since you're losing a far longer stretch of life from the averages (an OD'ing 25 year old affects the stats more than an OD'ing 70 year old).

If you have some resources indicating this misandry and racism is behind drug use and suicide, can you share it? I'm not even saying that for some people it's upsetting to see this POV (the same that I imagine some boomers are tired of being told they created a lot of today's crises), but it seems like a pretty simplistic view and, if at all, only ver tangentially related.

Here's a study that shows social isolation is a contributing risk factor for mortality.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/174569161456835...

As if this is the cause of the life expectancy drop for American men. I think learning how to deal with this type of criticism is a quality one needs to have nowadays. I'm white and I have no problem with twitter or reddit. They are actually great platforms.

I think the root of the problem with American men is that inequality in America is increasing. Also the culture and education system needs a reform, a lot of kids are growing in an environment where drug abuse is cool, doctors don't want to hear patients and just prescribe medicine etc.

There are a lot of wrong incentives. Hopefully the next president focuses on addressing them.

>They are actually great platforms.

With incredibly toxic userbases.

What does "toxic" mean?

Maybe you haven't heard that word in this context before, it's of course not meant to be read literally. I understand it the same way as I would read "toxic workplace culture" or "toxic social environment", which is that there are people who bully, abuse power, take advantage of you, deliberately misunderstand you, are racist, sexist, etc.

>What does "toxic" mean?

Toxic -- adjective (ˈtäk-sik)

1) containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing death or serious debilitation

2) exhibiting symptoms of infection or toxicosis

3) extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful

4) relating to or being an asset that has lost so much value that it cannot be sold on the market

In the context of this specific discussion, for the sake of disambiguation, the third definition listed above is the one being used. Here are some articles which may help to further clarify the concept of "toxic" as it applies to people, social interactions and online communities:

https://psychcentral.com/blog/whats-a-toxic-person-how-do-yo...

https://www.healthscopemag.com/health-scope/toxic-relationsh...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/02/26/racism-...

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/18/americans-s...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/us/toxic-masculinity.html

I have no problem there, people are very friendly on every reddit sub I enjoy visiting. The same is for twitter.

What those platforms have in common is choice.

If you are toxic and think it is fine to openly argue and make socially awkward comments the whole time, then you will view it that way. You will likely also get attracted by subs and communities that this happens.

>I have no problem there, people are very friendly on every reddit sub I enjoy visiting. The same is for twitter.

The only way to have a good time on those platforms and to a lesser (but increasing, in my unscientific observation) degree, HN is to only express opinions that toe the party line (party line being relative to whatever the mainstream opinion is on the platform or subset of it in question). Those platforms have features designed to amplify consensus and quash dissent.

or not care about downvotes

But why would you post if you don't care about people's reaction to your message?

You can care about how some people react without overvaluing the aggregate reaction.

It's good you mentioned HN. I also find it to be an extremely reasonable forum. Radical opinions pop up every once in a while, but somehow they still manage to cause little outrage and hatred.

Kudos to the team (and all of us too!)

> Radical opinions pop up every once in a while

Is it just me, or are they becoming more common. I could have sworn when I browsed HN several years back there was next to non of it, but theres a good chance I'm just remembering incorrectly

You must be incredibly lucky, as I carefully curated my Twitter feed to a few scientists and some baseball figures and was still overwhelmed at the hate and awfulness on display. Twitter is for the hateful and gleefully cruel.

I follow a large number of web developers, male and female on Twitter. I see a lot of complaints about men in general from women - some of it fair, some of it nasty. One dev in particular regularly rage tweets about men and makes the point her tweets are aimed at every single man - including those who are generally nice people and respectful towards women. Reading Twitter just makes me feel depressed some days, being constantly reminded that because I’m white and male I’m actually a fucking scumbag

>Reading Twitter just makes me feel depressed some days, being constantly reminded that because I’m white and male I’m actually a fucking scumbag.

You should do what everyone else gets told to do when they complain about being harassed on the internet - simply ignore it.

I'm not sure Twitter and Reddit are equivalent here. There are plenty of really great subreddits. It's pretty easy to avoid the ones you don't like. You can stick to a political silo for sure, but also (and more ideally) you can just stick to an interest group that stays on topic but doesn't talk about politics. (if you take this approach, there will be many subreddits that are off limits, but you'll also avoid much outrage and addiction.)

Twitter is much more of a free-for-all. There's a much greater chance of politics and general public reaching you on Twitter.

Agreed that there is a lot of toxicity. But I think there's value in learning to participate without being dragged down by griefers and trolls.

> there's value in learning to participate without being dragged down by griefers and trolls

There's also value in knowing when to detach. For most people, these platforms are value subtracting.

It is generally not possible to participate on the reddit while presenting an alternate viewpoint. You go to your own echo chamber or you get downvoted into oblivion.

This sounds like a caricature. I haven't been to the US in years, but I don't believe it's this bad.

In a country this big, there are massive areas just a little bit off of the beaten path where millions of people live where the suffering these numbers speak to is largely taking place - areas where people have few employment or higher education options, stricken by drug epidemics (since producing/moving/usings drugs is glamorous in dismally poor regions), where public schools are abysmally bad, where they have to drive 20 miles for a grocery store that sells produce.

I live here and travel frequently and it's very hard for even me to be in touch with the areas that are suffering. There are huge swaths of Metro Detroit that range from pleasantly functional to fabulously wealthy - a normal person would have to take a weird detour to be exposed to the dysfunctional/left behind part of America. I recently drove through Ohio to visit an amazing state park and the story was much the same. Reputable journalists write about massive unemployment and drug abuse in many regions there, but all I saw was well-maintained infrastructure, cute urban areas and a beautiful park.

>I'm [ethic group] and I [love social media].

In a country that doesn't have universal healthcare you blame twitter for reducing the lifespan of the poor?

What's about a country that does have a universal healthcare for poor? Oh, wait...

1. If lack of healthcare were the cause, wouldn't life expectancy also drop equally for all other demographics who are just as poor?

2. The article specifically mentioned the uptick is caused by suicide and drug overdose

3. America does have a healthcare system for the poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid

And is drug rehab a funded by the healthcare system for the poor in the US?

A quick google search confirms that it is.

https://www.addictioncenter.com/rehab-questions/medicaid-and...

Yes, why? https://www.addicted.org/medicaid-drug-rehab-centers.html

Well great then. My hunch didn't pan out.

When you are a privileged American, that's all you can see: people who don't agree with you are the reason why people are overdosing and committing suicide. It's sad.

Just adding to what you said, which is correct, the issue is much more likely to be because the US nowadays is a very developed economy, but socially and culturally it is worse than many of third world countries. The country is only good for a very few. And I'm not even pushing some leftist view or anything. It's more like, there is so much data that says this is completely wrong and in many cases even dampers economic development.

For instance, just imagine if all black Americans would have a degree, how much GDP the US would add? Or if there wouldn't be an incentive for doctors to prescribe a lot of medicine to people?

In the US there are a lot of wrong incentives and this is what is killing Americans and making it look like a silly country when compared to other developed countries. Almost all the other developed countries, if not all, the people live better lives, of more quality, more happy... even though they have lower GDP per capita than US.

We never had it and we have never been this unhappy. Read "Coming apart". It focuses on whites, but the lessons there apply to any demographic. The economy has come to value one thing above all others: intellectual aptitude. Intellectual ability is different from other talents, in two important ways. First, one very smart person can do things that a million less smart cannot, no matter how motivated, and second, the fruits of high IQ, consisting mostly of information, can be easily duplicated. The result is that, increasingly, only a few, incredibly talented people, actually have economic value. Everybody else is left without pride, purpose or a livelihood. Though this is no picnic for women, it is particularly devastating for men, who tend to tie much of their self image to their ability to provide. There is no easy way out of this trap and for many suicide is the only escape they see.

Quitting reddit over a year ago was good for my mental health. I noticed that I found myself being very submissive and changing my behavior and opinions so that some anonymous mob wouldn’t dogpile on me.

I think the same thing is happening in society where men are expected to behave a certain way or be shamed.

I did that during the Kavanaugh circus. definitely feel much better as a result. Despite enjoying it a lot more now, my overall engagement in social media is down as well. Probably cofactors in how much better I feel.

>If you have the mass media constantly telling a group of people that they're inherently evil, of course it's going to cause suicides.

So there's maybe 20-30 years of "anti-white racism", how many years did we have "regular racism"?

How is that relevant?

20 to 30 years is almost my entire life

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