Comment by freedomben | Hacker News Reader

Comment by freedomben | Hacker News Reader

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To me, the hotline is an absolute joke and one of the last things I would do if I were contemplating harming myself. I've often wondered if there is hard data showing it is effective overall, or whether it's just bandwagon group think run amok.

I have lost a number of friends to suicide, and as a result I spent a significant amount of time thinking about what could have been done to have helped them before it was too late. In nearly all cases, it was pretty well thought out and not a spur of the moment thing. In some cases, they even took steps to prevent people from discovering their plans. So anecdotally, a suicide hotline would not have helped at all.

Based on some searching though, it seems like there is data showing that it helps on the whole. I guess for people who are having a spur of the moment thought, it might be potentially helpful. However I also found some people saying that seeing the prolific messages about calling the hotline when searching for information about things really pushed them away and somewhat backfired.

I guess ultimately this is a very complex issue with no one size fits all solution. If I ever get to a point where I no longer have to work, this is a cause I would love to work on for the people that tend to think it through more and less spontaneous.

Having an option to talk to someone when you're alone and having trouble getting out of your own head is a great option. If you don't know what to do and you only see death as the option, having someone give you options seems like a good thing to have available at a relatively low cost.

I don't think anyone is expecting this to "solve suicide" but it sure as hell beats the alternative of... :checks notes: nothing?

Calling a therapist is similar to a "hotline" but you need to have a therapist first, which is a pain in the ass. Making that easier would be a good concrete second step (which a hotline can also help with!)

"sure as hell beats the alternative of... :checks notes: nothing?"

There seem to be many things that we could do, like addressing suicide as a social contagion including in media portrayal, providing better substance abuse and mental health treatment options, etc. A hotline is like a bandaid - its not going to fix the underlying societal issues like disconnection, lack of community, lack of opportunity/hope, social media, etc.

What’s your point? Okay, the hotline is a bandage, but that’s entirely the point, you use it when you’re feeling suicidal and you need to talk to someone. You don’t use it to fix structural issues in your life that lead to you feeling like that.

Disconnection, lack of community / opportunity / hope and social media are all major societal issues that (in my opinion) are not going to be solved by any sort of single government or charity. Making progress on that takes shifting norms / moving the overton window on depression and addiction, and overriding a lot of human nature (we like easy, we like saccharine, etc).

Definitely open to whatever concrete ideas you have that would fix those things, especially if they don't require a nation's whole GDP.

There is hard data showing they extended several thousand lives.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/988-hotline-linked-to-th...

The important thing to remember is the variability of the human condition, stuff that would fall 90% of the time can still move the numbers.

As mentioned above - there is data that helps.

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