* https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/988-crisis-hotlin...
"Suicide deaths dropped 11% from projected rate in the first two years of the revamped lifeline"
* https://www.statnews.com/2026/04/22/988-hotline-linked-11-pe...
For example, some people want to work at Palantir and find it interesting that some executive named Steve Cohen runs the AC at 60 degrees and eats ice cubes all day to aid cognition[0]. There's a very wide diversity of people out there, so the fact that some find this appealing is not interesting or surprising.
So, the question, in my mind, is less that something works for somebody, and more about the broader meaning of this civilizational function.
[0] https://nabeelqu.substack.com/p/reflections-on-palantir (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41855006)
It's fine to be cynical but it's also good to remember that there are real people that do care and try to improve the world as well.
Bandaids are useful. And can save measurable numbers of lives.
Personally, I'm not anti-capitalist, but capitalism to me is tied up conceptually with money and expedience. Feelings, in my opinion, are sort of in a different human realm.
But yes, for sure, that alienation as I allege it, is probably good for many people in crisis who are uncomfortable with the people around them. However, the question of why it is that such people aren't comfortable with anyone around them is the bigger one in my mind.
> Please drink responsibily
To me, although they work, suicide hotlines appear to be a naked corporate CYA, just like gambling and other addiction hotlines. Civilization will beat you down, won't give you health insurance except for a few free COVID shots (then, suddenly, people can totally mobilize to administer collective healthcare), but hey when you've just about had it, here's a hotline you can call (and we'll sell your data hahahahaha sucker).
Also Dutch give you health insurance beyond covid shot.
The rest, everything else.
It's darkly amusing to me we don't get healthcare here in the US but we do get suicide hotlines.
EDIT: wouldn't be surprised if Trump defunded/privatized suicide hotlines using companies run by the Trump Org.
What are you specifically talking about? What is “everything else”?
In individual with odd habits is a completely different thing. That comparison is utterly inapt.
If you had an entire population that started running the AC at 60 degrees and eating ice cubes all day, and cognition measurably increased by 11%, that would be incredible news.
But, just because it works doesn't mean it's not a capitalism solution using the capitalism hammer of talking to random people behind a phone (which, again, might be a net good thing for some people crisis).
So again, I am not against anti-suicide hotlines. I am sincerely happy they help many people. I just think they are very symbolically representative of our capitalist alienated world where everything, down to our very drive to exist, has a corporate CYA hedge hotline.
While not everyone that calls the hotline is involuntarily committed, I wonder how the data matches up with this finding [1]:
> "In this meta-analysis of 100 studies of 183 patient samples, the postdischarge suicide rate was approximately 100 times the global suicide rate during the first 3 months after discharge and patients admitted with suicidal thoughts or behaviors had rates near 200 times the global rate. Even many years after discharge, previous psychiatric inpatients have suicide rates that are approximately 30 times higher than typical global rates."
People who come home from the hospital after being admitted for cancer treatment will have a much higher cancer death rate than the general population, but that doesn't imply that hospital treatment is damaging.
How certain are you that this is a fact? I agree that is seems like common sense on the surface, but that might not be the case. The closest I could find in the study was this:
> However, the findings should curb enthusiasm for restrictive interventions directed at patients labeled as having high risk of suicide by virtue of demographic or clinical variables. Our figures suggest that 0.28% of all discharged patients can be expected to commit suicide during the first 3 months after discharge. The modest statistical strength of suicide risk assessment means that even patients who are classified as having high risk because of their suicide risk factors will have a low absolute probability of suicide over clinically meaningful time frames, whereas patients with a low risk for suicide will still have a probability of suicide that is many times that in the general community.
It also seems that largest factor, and perhaps a better determinant of severity, is the number of times one is (re)admitted.
> People who come home from the hospital after being admitted for cancer treatment will have a much higher cancer death rate than the general population
How much higher?
Do you think this statement is comparable to cancer treatment?
> Our data suggest that the suicide rates among discharged patients have not decreased in the past 50 years. This is a disturbing finding considering the increase in community psychiatry and the availability of a range of new treatments during this period.
I think this is the take away from the study that is also important:
> However, the very high suicide rates calculated in this study and the known limitations of suicide risk assessment suggest that a focus on clinical risk assessment might mislead clinicians into thinking that some patients can be regarded as having low risk after discharge. Our findings better support the views of authors who believe in a more universal approach to suicide prevention that might focus on periods of high risk but that extends for periods of years.
Also, I need to clarify one thing. I apologize for any confusion. I realized how half-finished my initial comment was. I did not mean to imply the damage from facilities comes from treatments per se, though there are still risks with all treatments. I should have clarified that damage can occur from the systems surrounding the facility. The (incorrect) stigma surrounding admission, the potential police interventions, the medical debt from being admitted, loss of certain rights/job prospects, etc.. Yes, the facilities do help some individuals, that is their purpose, but some people are hesitant to say, call the hotline, out of fear of being committed, which can also be damaging.
But it doesn't actually matter to my point. It's a very reasonable hypothesis, true or not. It needs to be addressed as a potential confounding factor, either by showing it's not true, or by showing that the size of the observed effect is greater than the effect from the confounding factor.