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Comment by phfez | Hacker News Reader

I can understand why you think this might be a good idea. But it completely doesn't take the depressed person into account at all. It thinks it can solve suicide by checking up on the individual? Do you think the individual wants to be checked up on? Maybe the people checking up on the person are the actual problem in that person's life, which could create an even more serious dilemma for that person.

If there is anything that would drive me to suicide, it would be more people thinking that they can 'solve the problem' in this manner.

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Hey thanks for the feedback. I understand your point on the topic, but I would like to point out that CheckUp isn't trying to 'solve' suicide in this manner. The philosophy behind the project is that you, at some level, care about the people you are socially connected to, and you may care if they are contemplating something very bad.

The goal is to create a service that will prioritize self-threatening posts from people you care about above the usual noise of your social network. Publicly posted cries for help can indicate very serious intent and we just want to make sure they don't go unnoticed.

I tried to comment the other day, but apparently I met my quota for replies.... but I wanted to respond to this.

You are making assumptions incorrectly. You are determining right from wrong, good from bad, and everything else for someone that you don't know, and you do not know that person's circle of friends or family, so you can't assume that they care as much as you'd like them to care.

When you create a program, you should be trying to solve a problem.... I'd like to know what problem it is that you are trying to solve?

As somebody who was affected by the suicide of a close friend, it would be wonderful if something existed that could help others with suicidal feelings.

But there is something sad about the idea that an algorithm would be better at detecting suicidal feelings than your closest friends.

You think it would be wonderful because of the way that you felt, not the way your friend felt.

And there is no algorithm that can detect suicidal feelings. I can't help but think of Alan Turing in this scenario.

> And there is no algorithm that can detect suicidal feelings.

I get what you're saying, but given the miracles that do exist in modern medicine, I'm not prepared to say it's impossible. I suspect better availability of mental healthcare, preferring counselling over drugs, and less stigmatising would all be better 'solutions' than an algorithm, but if an algorithm did exist that could genuinely help then it would be a good thing.

You did not address the first part of his comment,

> You think it would be wonderful because of the way that you felt, not the way your friend felt.

Why not?

Not a conversation that I think is particularly relevant to HN, nor possible to have effectively online.

But, in short, I genuinely believe that, though my friend's despair at the moment she took her life was very real, she could and would have got through that despair. Her suicide had a huge impact on those around her, especially her parents, and it would have been better both for her and those around her if she had been helped through the despair instead of just ending it.

Yes, if only this existed for turing, we could have thrown him in jail for not wanting to live in our bigoted society.

You hit the nail on the head, most people want a tool like this so every now and then they can stop being a shitty person for a few days before they go back to the navel gazing: "No one had talked to him in months, we had no idea he was depressed."

We should be aiming to make the world a place people want to live in, not encouraging people to want to get out of it.

> And there is no algorithm that can detect suicidal feelings.

Not so certain about that. I suffer from major depressive disorder and tweeted a while back speculating about this - I'd just come out of a depressive episode and noticed that my patterns of using social media were different than when I wasn't depressed - generally negative mood, lower interaction in general, mentions of drug abuse in chat, etc. I wondered if something monitoring my IM and Twitter could detect an incoming depressive episode before it fully hit, allowing me to 'prepare' a little more.

If a "depressed" person is posting things that flag a SUICIDE watch app, then I'd say they are obviously posting those things to draw attention to their issues. Therefore someone noticing would probably be just what they want.

Exactly, which would make this app unnecessary.

Twitter feeds move pretty fast. People might not notice a cry for help until it's too late.

If a person is feeling suicidal because the people in their life are not noticing their pain, I really doubt that knowing an algorithm had to do it will make them feel any better.

My friend posted a 'suicide note' on MySpace back in the day. He was a funny guy and everyone thought it was a joke about drinking too much. It wasn't.

Cynical. Depression is often the cause of suicide. Its not 'caused' by people trying to socialize. Makes perfect sense to me to monitor my mental state externally, just like I check my blood pressure and weight.

Do you think an external program can understand all of the complexities of the human drama within the context of a single person's life?

No all, but that's not a reason not to try.

That's an interesting perspective. I disagree. I think if someone is tweeting about suicidal intentions then it follows that they are not concerned about the privacy of those intentions.

Exactly, which would make this app unnecessary.

Many people don't understand the terms and conditions of social networks like twitter and facebook, and privacy with those services is ambiguous and difficult to manage.

If a person is feeling suicidal because the people in their life are not noticing their pain, I really doubt that knowing an algorithm had to do it will make them feel any better.

It'd probably be more successful if it had access to your IM/chat/email logs, where you're more likely to be emotionally revealing to people you're close to. That opens up a whole other can of worms re: privacy, though.

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