kevadk

Most posts that I see from Daring Fireball remind me of ribbonfarm's "Internet of Beefs."

It would be difficult to lean in harder than this one does. For me, this is a sign to tune out. Not above drama, but I prefer it in media that activate a wider range of emotions.

My reading was that the article just didn't get much deeper than "because of course this is the kind of book an indebted gambling addict with a history of physical health problems and political persecution would write."

For comparison, here are a few of the highest rates per 100k in the US:

98.7 - Kusilvak Census Area, AK; 75.1 - Nome Census Area, AK; 64.2 - Sioux County, ND; 58.9 - Buffalo County, SD; 49.3 - Carbon County, UT

https://vizhub.healthdata.org/subnational/usa

Extend the list and you see lots of high latitudes, low incomes, remote rural settings, and indigenous American populations (e.g. Yupik and Inupiaq in Alaska, Sioux in the Dakotas).

Alcoholism is often common in these places, although survey data do not show it affecting the groups in northern Alaska so heavily. Deaths due to chronic liver disease are not particularly high for them, either. There's a distinct history in Nunavut, though, so the story might be different.

This sounds like a fable invented by someone familiar with the story of the phony villages that Grigory Potemkin built along the Volga to impress Empress Catherine II.