After neighbor’s death, first-time filmmaker declares war on suicide
japantimes.co.jp
japantimes.co.jp
It's amazing what a compelling movie can do. It's a delicate act, but when done correctly it encourages people to use their compassion and empathy as weapons for a cause. We're so attuned to human faces and voices that movies directly and emotionally engage us in ways that are far beyond mere paper.
My friend attempted to do something like this with homelessness. He actually found a camera, went out there, and just tried to talk to homeless people and helped them to get off the streets while chronicling their journey. Although it sounds simple and, well, uninteresting, what he captured on film ended up being a fascinating, compassionate look into this complex world. I really recommend it;
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/but-for-the-grace-of-god/i...
Also interesting is that many of the countries listed as having the lowest suicide rates are also the most Catholic according to wikipedia (Phillipines, Brazil, Mexico and Italy).
These are not simple subjects and every case is as different as people are different.
Is euthanasia really suicide?
Euthanasia is when someone ends the life of somebody else upon that other person's clear and well-considered request.
People will differ in their opinion whether there is a difference with murder here.
Suicide is what occurs when you don't have the option for life.
When you have a terminal disease, you've entered the state of being in the end of life. You're just choosing how that endgame plays out.
Not everyone has the fortune to die surrounded by the corpses of their enemies.
Most of hacker news will be lucky in this regard. Despite the occasional existential crisis, as entrepreneurs we're self selected eternal optimists. Sadly not everyone turns out so lucky.
In general, if you're wondering what causes high suicide rates, it's a lot more useful to look at societal motivators than race. As everywhere, there's a strong correlation between depression and suicide, and it's not hard to find the main causes. In Japan's particular case, the largest group committing suicide are the elderly, who have devoted their lives to their company and feel they have nothing left when they retire. The second-largest group is the unemployed, particularly those who have fallen into debt traps that very often ensnare family and friends as guarantors, with life insurance providing an "easy" way out. And the final group is students, who commit suicide to escape bullying or the immense pressure of their final exams.
Surely , as one of the first steps towards reducing the suicide rate in Japan, insurance companies should stop incentivizing suicide.
As a quote I read yesterday illustrated: Be thankful for what you haven't, for it's less worry.
I get why you're saying this, but it bugs me when people tell those with an inclination to commit suicide to not do it.
It's not your life, and your judgments about its current and future value are meaningless. The person living the life, and that person alone, can meaningfully judge the value of continuing to be alive. It's arrogant and dickish to tell a person about the value that continuing to live has, even if well intentioned, and doubly so in the case of a person you (likely) do not know.
If someone commits suicide because he doesn't want to go to prison for a long time, is that a bad decision? Seems pretty good to me...
>• Blue lights installed at train stations have reduced suicide by 80 percent at those stations. How or why this works, nobody knows.
I can't stop thinking about this. I've tried to puzzle out some type of reason, but I'm just not getting anything.
"Designed to soothe and calm, the specially-designed blue LED lights have been suspended above the platforms of dozens of Tokyo railway stations in order to stem the nation's spiralling suicide rate."
It is a sort of a societal placebo. Or maybe the subconscious message is "someone cared to put these here for me to prevent me from killing myself, someone cares at least, maybe today is not the day".
In other words I wonder if the color of lights would have been violet or yellow but some "research" had been disseminated that yellow lights are calming and prevent suicide, that combined with the action of someone to install them, then I suspect yellow lights would have worked just as well.
Sunlight is "white light", meaning that all the colors in the visible segment of the spectrum are well represented. Green is the most represented though: http://www.handmadeinpa.net/2012/02/the-color-of-the-sun/sa_...
CONCLUSIONS: Narrow bandwidth blue light at 607 microW/cm2 outperforms dimmer red light in reversing symptoms of major depression with a seasonal pattern.
EDIT: When an english speaking reporter can't figure something out in a foreign country they often say "nobody knows ..." but really they mean "I couldn't find a source to tell me ..."
EDIT 2: I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was discussed in the movie. I just got to that part. Clearly the author of the film knows plenty of Japanese people and knows this subject well. At the same time there was still a scientific reason for installing them: other posters are pointing out that there have been studies measuring blue light showing it is a "stimulus for acute melatonin suppression" . Interesting!
Same is true in English-speaking countries with English-speaking reporters :)
"No one (that I know) knows..."
"The power of regret," what a powerful force. It's not often that we are able to use it in such a tangible way. The filmmaker's attempt to make amends may help us all to stop ignoring our neighbors.
Still I wonder what kind of problems his neighbour had to justify putting an end to her life.
Japan ranked highest in the world for masculinity, [masculinity-femininity (task orientation versus person-orientation)]
Assuming Hofstede's reflect reality. Could this have something to do with the high suicide rate?
Another musing,
Could it have something to do with Confucian cultures and a great deal of pressure to fulfill one's filial piety?
Precisely. China, Japan, South Korea are all seriously Confucian influenced. Chinese suicides are often young people with poor families who fail to enter university. SK was the most depressing place I've ever been. Vietnam's another place that's historically a heavily Confucian society, I wonder if they collect realistic suicide statistics? (Last visit, last year, the mood in Hanoi seemed to be very strong compared to, say, 10 years ago.)
His suicide was caused by extreme depression, something he fought his entire life. In my opinion, now, its not different than losing a battle with cancer, except that outwardly it appears he "chose" to end his life. Having experienced depression myself, I know it was not really him who made that decision. Tools like this will hopefully help us find new "cures" or at least support structures for those who are seriously mentally ill.
I had nightmares for 3 months. Insomnia and loss of love for code ensued, as I created barriers with the world.
All my community could say is "it happens to anyone." And I take things too literally, perchance. I doubt I could live through this again, in a world where we are killing everyone from autistics to Jewish peoples to student tourists with cameras.
But what is more I am now hyperaware. I long for sincere eyes. Some see it, others simply attack. Others notice this of me as well, and they must discover the mystery...with all sorts of tests. Yes, so I have sensitive hearing and I rock when hungry. Does that make me a predator? I want the staring to stop. But the basic fear: it could happen to anyone. Now I am reminded quite frequently here in Austin that random and bad people are simply picked up off of the street and killed, randomly, when all I have is a broken heart.
Until they run me off with that one last death or racist joke that makes upper society's configurable moral compass quite unappealing, and its fascination with tastelessness and unchecked chauvenism as the lingua franca of capability.
People are often too ugly inside to warrant participation in this "fear market."
"Deranged" is baseless opinion. "Deranged or whatever" is arguing for argument's sake. "Anything but racialism" is post-colonial guilt.
I have no reason to engage in any of these practices on the matter.
I suspected an implication. Please read the comments he made later on.
You are forcing a racist interpretation where there isn't one. You are not giving benefit of the doubt. No one is saying "boy those greeks sure screwed themselves." And even if one were, that's an assessment of their political and economic dealings, though we all know Greece is embedded in a complex arrangement with the EU and the US's pig-headed foreign policies.
"X's ecomomy is crumbling" can be said without racism. And "madness" can be similarly used I hold this true of any peoples subject to the human condition with an economy so described. Look at Morocco, etc. Sometimes environment is the cause, and when the environment is arbitrarily caused.
Again, as the commenter noted, nothing was said about Greeks [in general]. Economy of country and that as an alternative explanation to an individual of that country, yes. The articles on the story state that he is Greek so I figured I should as well.
In fact by saying "look at the economy" I am even further emphasizing the arbitrariness of a cultural explanation, which psychologizing does not do but rather lends to something about Greekness or Greek social thought. I'm saying "yes, he happens to be Greek, and he is from a failing economy that may have caused his distress." And so, "How did this happen to the economy in question that might cause people subject to it to respond in all of these ways?"
Again, I don't know about the verdict on the man. I withhold opinion. I don't think he'll be able to enjoy life given a majority of the options allotted him. He's deprived of life either way, and this too is saddening. So there's nothing to say about his "manipulating the system in his favor." He is in a bad spot regardless, but I think saying that he is deranged is an intuitive response, rather than a critical one. How did he become deranged? He clearly was at some point not deranged. I'm saying the state of Greece's economy, embedded in a global economy, is where we should look.
I believe you.
> I'm saying the state of Greece's economy, embedded in a global economy, is where we should look.
This is where I think you're jumping the gun. There are insane people everywhere. Sometimes some of them do brutal things. That's a sad fact of life. Implicating his Greek-ness will, I believe, lead to unnecessary bitterness against Greeks.
I'm sure you've come across Grice's Maxim of Relevance. Going by that, I tend to include "Greek" if his being Greek led to some racially motivated action, I'd include "male" if his being male led to some sexually motivated action, etc.
Greece's economy has been crumbling, and many all over the world are succumbing to madness. This feels like another test, but how am I to know if someone is deranged?
Don't force me to accept some verdict by law. I don't deserve that...
> Greece's economy has been crumbling...
Your point? Did you mean that Greeks are succumbing to madness?
> how am I to know if someone is deranged?
I am not a psychologist, so I can't pass diagnoses either. But some words of lay language express anger or contempt.
> Don't force me to accept some verdict by law.
I have no idea what you meant by that. I did not imply any force.
Why would I respond to something you're explicitly divorcing from context? If you preserve what I say, you see that I clearly have an assessment nearing to the judgment that [many] in Greece are succumbing to madness.
Do I have a scientific basis for using words like "madness"? Well, would "deranged" be any better?
How about this?: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must passover in silence.
"But some words of lay language express anger or contempt."
wat ?
"I have no idea what you meant by that. I did not imply any force."
It is coincidence, then, that you suggest "deranged" which is in line in actual fact with his sentence: He was assigned to a mental institution. I can acknowledge that it happens, but I need not say it was the right thing to do. I can withhold opinion on the matter. "Deranged" suggests that he should be treated in a certain way — I have no opinion on how he ought to be treated, I just do not know, barring any generalization to similar cases.
But again: I say [Many] are succumbing, which translates to a statement like [Some] are succumbing, not [All] are succumbing, which is what [Greeks] are succumbing is most often interpreted as[1].
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[1]: Please see: Predicate Logic.
No. My point was that words like "mad" and "deranged" are part of lay language, and in lay use, only expresses a personal opinion, rather than a medical diagnosis.
> Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must passover in silence.
The irony is killing me.
> "Deranged" suggests that he should be treated in a certain way
It doesn't suggest any such thing. I'd use that word for any brutal murderer.
> Why would I respond to something you're explicitly divorcing from context?
Wat? I questioned the context. Not the same as "explicitly divorcing from context". I asked the question, just so you'd make your bias explicit.
Yes, personal opinion but of different models of analyses for explanation. "Mad" is a vaguer term than "deranged" (see Foucault's descriptivist/presciptivist politics). "Mad" is a pointing to "the cause is more complex than we think." "Deranged" is a pointing, most probably, to the DSM (for instance) as a guide.
"The irony is killing me."
This is not irony. You're taking my words out of context to re-purpose them as ammunition within an already complicated topic. If I said "this sentence is false" you very well might say that I'm invalidating everything I'm saying.
"It doesn't suggest any such thing. I'd use that word for any brutal murderer."
No, sir. "Deranged" and "mad" may have many overlaps, but they are not substitutible salva veritate.
You have not proved any bias. I'm saying that madness is prevalant, and sometimes can explain more than a quick leap into psychologizing. "Madness" does not mean that it was utterly free of will to manipulate the circumstances. Madness may have a causal basis as well, if not stronger than "psychological laws." (So here I am blocking the idea that because he was "just mad" he thought it convenient to manipulate the circumstances in his favor. I am saying that "madness," though vaguer than "derangement," has a stronger force that "derangment."
I subscribe to legal realism. Like I said, I don't know how we ought to treat him, which implies that I don't know much about the man himself. Legal systems analyze intention to come to (public) justice, not to ensure that the victim is redressed.
My position or statements are a comment on the adjacent, failing legal system. These governments and trade unions (via pharmaceutical industries) have become so thick with corruption that the theoretical construct of the "Observation Statement," emergent from Logical Positivism and Scientific Philosophy, is subjective to game-theoretical quantum systems.
Am I saying that ontologically mental illnesses are diseases?[1] That's a debate. However, Copycat suicide has warrantability or assertability conditions, and we can employ strategies that minimize the spread of disease to minimize the fluctuation of social statistical norm deviation, along time paradigmatic cycles.
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[1]: http://www.ted.com/conversations/14653/debate_is_mental_illn...
It seems to me that the intelligent, sensitive and wise are the ones who kill themselves.
The blockhead, self-entitled, criminal, etc. never seem to.
Not so much.
No, he's passionate about control.
Where do people get off telling others what they can and can't do with their life. Who better then the ACTUAL PERSON to decide when and if it's the right time to call it quits (for whatever reason - once again it's nobody elses business on the why).
With 7 billion people and counting, why are people making such a big deal when someone decides their time on the ride called "human life" should be over. For most, there is little choice, you live, then you die. For some, they would rather take personal control over the when. Why is that a bad thing?
The world has turned into a huge nanny - butting into the smallest of things that should remain completely in control of the individual.
Over the last 12 years, twice I've fought with cancer and won (or at least had it declared a tie) but you can bet that I have a exit plan in hand (and yes, that includes taking care of the people I'll leave behind). Withering away in excruciating pain is not for me (does that make me weak? a coward? or just prudent in deciding how I WANT to end MY LIFE).