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Comment by finnthehuman | Hacker News Reader

>Really tragic how little attention is paid to this

Meh. I’d rather have the silence when the alternate is repeating useless memes at eachother and thinking it’s more productive than the silence.

Suicide is like mass shootings in one way... the media and popular conversation are only equipped to make the problem worse.

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I agree and disagree. We should devote more total resources to the issue, but maybe not through media? I believe the government has 2 primary responsibilities: applying cost to externalities, and keeping it's constituents healthy. Everything else should be second class. If our (the US) nation's priorities were more than a half-baked set of corporate agendas we might actually have such a government.

It's catch 22. We need people to care about this, but shoving it down our throats on primetime tv isn't a productive way to accomplish this.

I think that more attention in terms of funding and research are helpful, but a better conversation at a societal level could be incredibly valuable. There is so much stigma and shame associated with mental illness and suicide. I know this is said so much it sounds cliche, but it is real and important. So many people could feel better but don't because they are ashamed of others reaction, or because our society's (US but probably others) attitude toward mental illness makes people feel they are bad or broken for experiencing mental illness. A more open discussion and acceptance of mental illness could be incredibly powerful

Do you think more awareness of and empathy for mental health issues and better resources to support depressed people are pointless? That's presumably what GP meant by "attention".

the media and popular conversation are only equipped to make the problem worse.

I posit that it's possible for this to improve. I further posit that said improvement hinges on allowing for such discussions to occur to begin with so we can work out a path forward to better conversations on such topics.

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