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Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of bridge fences being successful at bringing down overall suicide: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2610560/

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Yup, suicidal attempts are often impulsive, so any barrier (in this case literally) even if it's relatively easy to get around, reduces suicide rates. Here's another study, this time on firearms:

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner...

> The researchers found that people who owned handguns had rates of suicide that were nearly four times higher than people living in the same neighborhood who did not own handguns. The elevated risk was driven by higher rates of suicide by firearm. Handgun owners did not have higher rates of suicide by other methods or higher rates of death generally.

Suicide attempts by firearm are far more likely to complete than most other means, ergo, suicide death rates are higher among those that have firearms.

I think about this a lot with my brother. He took his life in the alleyway behind the gun shop where he just bought the ammo -- I have no idea what his mental state was (estranged from family for many years) but I have to think there was some impulsive decision-making involved.

I'm sorry to hear about your brother :( depression can be very much like torture. Some people can last for a long time before they will do/say anything to make it stop, but without help eventually it will wear you down until you don't value your life anymore and the promise of a "quick, painless end" via gunshot is hard to resist when you are too deep. Add in any kind of extra stress like drug addiction or trauma and it very quickly becomes too much.

I remember reading about how "sticking your head in an oven" was a legitimate suicide method when using coal gas ovens. When people switched to natural gas/electric, the suicide rate dropped drastically:

>The switch from coal gas to natural gas also had one unexpected effect. During the ‘50s and ‘60s, about half of the suicides in Britain were by coal gas. By the ‘70s, when the transition to natural gas was complete, the number of gas suicides had dropped to zero and the overall suicide rate was down a third. Even the suicidal appreciate convenience. If it's too much trouble, as Dorothy Parker said, "You might as well live."[1]

1. https://gizmodo.com/why-have-people-stopped-committing-suici...

For those unfamiliar with Dorothy Parker[0] and/or that punchline, here's the poem, Resumé, that it's from[1]:

Resumé

By Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker

[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44835/resume-56d22415...

Dark comedic thought: if a prerequisite to suicide is to get your affairs in order and leave behind a clean house, suicide would be very low; ugh, too lazy to clean. I'll just live instead.

Dark, comedic, and so true!

Imagine some kafkaesque effort of bureaucracy

Tangent: There’s a lot of societal pressure in A house being clean. Remember the line in Goonies from the mom, “boys, I really want the house clean when they tear it down”?

I always wanted to die clean and pretty

But I'd be too busy on working days

So I am relieved that the turbulence wasn't forecasted

I couldn't have changed anyways

I am relieved that I'd left my room tidy

Goodbye

If you see a friend getting their affairs in order and unexpectedly cleaning house then you should worry.

"Guns aren't lawful", after reading that line I thought she might be British, but it looks like she's American. Were gun laws stricter back then or something?

Yeah the Sullivan Act. Supreme Court struck it down last year.

That could also be explained that everyone who wanted to kill themselves (WW2 veterans) had already done so. Suicides being 1/3 lower in the 70s than the 50's and 60's seems expected.

Coal gas purportedly has much higher levels of carbon monoxide than natural gas, which would be sufficient.

I'm just talking about the connection to the overall suicide rate. Obviously if natural gas doesn't kill you, or as quickly, that method of suicide will go down. But the overall rate can be explained by many other phenomenon.

Yes but there is a much larger effect on gas oven suicides than overall.

Suicide prone population dying out would not cause one type of suicide to reduce in a much quicker rate - as is implied here.

E.g., Sylvia Plath.

Just living without dying is not a good life. If anyone wants to stop suicide they should prevent the root cause that leads to it, not just stop giving a less painful way to do so. It's inhuman and many forced to die horribly because of this. It's always the privileged who decides to make suicide harder.

They think life is always going to be good at after waiting. For many it's not true. Privileged people think just because they themselves have it easier, people who are willing to die just mentally ill and don't know how to enjoy life.

If we are brought to life easily without thinking and no consent, then there should be a way to leave if anyone wants to. Life should not be a one way hell trap, suffering for long time just so that well off people can feel better and not hear about suicide.

Nobody actually does anything to prevent root cause, but it's completely ok for them if people suffer long time without dying. Media will also never show humans whose life is still miserable after not dying. It must be a feel good story.

https://youtu.be/tetwGGL997s?t=149

Thank you! I am not, nor have I ever been suicidal. But the societal view towards it has always felt like tyrannical bullshit.

You’re telling me that if there is nothing left for me in life and I just don’t want to go on anymore that I can’t because society deems it has wrong and selfish (and yet society applauds other selfish acts…)

To be stuck as a slave to your environment and be deprived of your one ultimate freedom is inhumane.

It goes without saying that we should absolutely strive to help those that are suicidal. And a big part of that I imagine is actually providing people a space where they can find a purpose in life rather than being trapped in the endless cycle of trying to escape their debt with low paying and soul destroying jobs.

This makes me wonder more about the idea of legalizing assisted (pain-free) suicide, with the caveat that the process needs a lengthy evaluation time (background check for no coercion, mental evaluation etc).

I wonder if it would have the opposite effect, reducing suicide rate by picking up the people so hopeless they would've just jumped a bridge/bought a gun if the option of peaceful suicide didn't exist.

It sounds like any length process would remove the impulsive component and should suffice.

I think Canada has a popular assisted suicide program. I'm not sure if anyone has done the research to see how it affects suicide rates or methods outside of the program.

They tried this in Europe and it resulted in an interesting scenario where the doctor was killing someone who changed their mind and was telling them to stop.

Vermont passed a law like this in 2013, designed to help those with incurable diseases choose when to pass. Vermont Public Radio recently did a good podcast on it.

https://www.vermontpublic.org/podcast/brave-little-state/202...

In the Netherlands there is a problem of suicide by train near mental health institutions.

So they placed fences. That left the nearby crossings where there had to be gaps in the fencing. There they placed "anti walk mats", rubber(?) mats with a pointy surface that's hard (but not impossible) to walk on.

And those two together brought down the number of suicides by a lot.

That actually gives me some appreciation for some seemingly pointless vertical posts my city put into a bridge near me.

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