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Comment by rpedela | Hacker News Reader

The part about suicides is pretty interesting and perplexing. Are there any insights into why the rate has increased?

I think the drug and suicides, that affect mostly males, might be related to the social changes and gender role changes.

There is some research about "happyness" that started around 1970, two difference scientists asked more or less similar question since then: what you did in your day, and how happy you felt.

In 1970 women used to claim to be happier than men, there was a very large gap there.

Currently the gap is smaller, but reversed (men are happier instead), also both men and women are unhappier than in 1970s.

Regarding workload, women are working now (summing home chores and outside work) much more than 1970, men are also working more, but one thing that the researcher was noted, is that the time specifically dusting the house decreased a lot, since there is no major invention in that field since 1970s, he had the conclusion that maybe the source of unhappyness is that people don't have time even to keep their home clean, and are living in homes that are dirtier than they were in 1970.

Now I need to figure where was those articles (there are two of them with published data), I frankly don't remember :( (I stumbled on them on a night of random reading on internet)

One can spend a billion of studies on the causes of increasing suicide rates, really. I can name a few random causes:

* The US economy, at least for part of the populace, is pretty crappy; working three jobs, money worries, the financial crisis, it all adds up. * The internet; more (negative) news from all over the world, telling people how terrible it all is. At the same time, "Facebook Envy", people getting told how bad their life is in comparison to their facebook friends (which is skewed because a lot of people only put the good stuff on there). * People are dicks.

I wonder how much of this is also veterans.

It's a lot more socially acceptable to commit suicide for the elderly and terminally ill these days.

How can suicide become "more socially acceptable?" What does the delta consist of, between suicide being "not socially acceptable" and suicide being "socially acceptable?"

I've had no experience with anyone I know of committing suicide, but I am not seeing how to evaluate whether it is or isn't socially acceptable.

If your country has an assisted suicide clinic, it's probably more socially acceptable. When I get old and start forgetting people's names, I'll move to one of those countries in preparation.

In conversations about suicide the suicidal person can be talked of as "having given up"/"took the easy way out", "been selfish to their loved ones", "gone against god's will".

On the other end of the scale we can talk about "Dying with dignity", "Not being a burden to loved ones", "finally at peace", "being in a better place".

When more people hold the later views then it is more acceptable in society for someone to commit suicide because they don't feel that they are hurting others as much/aren't as evil for doing it (not that I believe they're at all evil I used that wording as those considering suicide may be self loathing).

You could even make arguments on a case by case basis if you wanted from the heroic last stand to a single parent leaving behind their children. It all comes down to what obligations we feel people have to stay alive.

The economic downturn is believed to play a big role:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/health/suicide-rate-rises-...

That seems to be around the age that people start feeling like they've 'missed the boat' if they aren't married, or didn't achieve their childhood ambitions.

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