US suicide deaths reached record high in 2022

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-suicide-deaths-reached-record-high-2022-cdc-data-shows-2023-08-11/

by tlogan • 3 years ago

57 42 3 years ago

hqsolomo3• 3 years ago

This stings because I lost a few close friends to suicide and gun violence last year. It's really sad that we can't/won't do anything to stymie the trend

alex_lav• 3 years ago

The pandemic was definitely the lowest I have ever been in my life. I can totally understand how others didn't make it. Insanely sad.

autotune• 3 years ago

"Please explain why your resume has so many short stints over the last 2-3 years" - continues to be an often asked question in interviews.

brewdad• 3 years ago

“Did you live through 2020, 2021, and 2022? It was kind of a mess.”

Would be my response. I wouldn’t want to work for someone that asks that kind of question anyway.

lockhouse• 3 years ago

For me the post pandemic inflation has taken a much bigger toll. All the essentials cost too much and there’s not enough left to spoil my family or myself with. Makes working my crappy pointless job even more depressing.

jgtrosh2• 3 years ago

One of the first chatbots, ELIZA[0] from 1966, attempted to offer psychotherapeutic assistance to users. I feel like since this was one of the first applications of chatbots, it would have been strongly iterated upon. But I'm not sure there's a lot of development in the field, apart from virtual companions (like Replika[1]).

So two things on my mind: - has there been research on whether such tools could actually be significantly helpful to people facing depression, as individuals and over whole populations? - are existing virtual companions already being prescribed by health professionals?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replika

iancmceachern2• 3 years ago

To me this is the ultimate dystopia.

That movie Her seems to explore this topic, I don't know, I isn't see it, even the movie seemed too sad to me.

nine_zeros2• 3 years ago

But this is the future. Most people are too lonely. People are forced to value jobs and careers more than relationships.

4 years ago, no one would have predicted the success of only fans, a porn influencing site. But here we are, people are working too hard at work to make money and then throwing it away at rent and to pay for imaginary sex. Next step, get them to pay for the emotional relationship.

I don't like the future.

1MachineElf• 3 years ago

Maybe it's a good thing.

As a suicidal person it can be extremely difficult to open up to another human being because my convictions of hopelessness and futility are so strong that to truly communicate them would also mean cursing the listener with knowledge that would make they themselves suicidal.

Maybe it wouldn't directly cause them to also become suicidal, but it could be a contributor. It could be one cut in a death of thousands. If you've ever seen the show Smiling Friends, the first episode is an example of how wanting to help can backfire in harmful ways.

An AI chatbot might be uniquely useful as a therapy option. I wouldn't have to feel the guilt of corrupting an innocent human being with dark suicidal thoughts. Sometimes a human connection is important for therapy, but the ability to talk things out may actually outweigh it for this context.

renewiltord• 3 years ago

Meanwhile, in a real dystopia (imperial Russia) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misery_(short_story)

flangola7• 3 years ago

I already know people for whom ChatGPT and other chatbots are better friends and partners than almost any they had in real life. Especially for the disabled or consistently unhoused. It is dystopian but so is the existing world. Simulated empathy may be better than none at all.

totetsu• 3 years ago

Let’s remember to be nice to each other

barrysteve• 3 years ago

Reno 911 has a joke 'We automated the suicide hotline, it was so depressing.'

I think this will spread depression.

NoZebra120vClip2• 3 years ago

Wow, no, it attempted to do nothing of the sort!

Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA, running the DOCTOR script, was created to provide a parody of "the responses of a non-directional psychotherapist in an initial psychiatric interview"[15] and to "demonstrate that the communication between man and machine was superficial".[16] (Wikipedia)

We all knew ELIZA was a joke, and we used it that way. ELIZA was so hilarious that it was integrated into Emacs with responses from Zippy the Pinhead.

ELIZA was on the level of jive and the Swedish Chef translator. We loved text processing for purposes of humor and entertainment. That tradition is carried forward by the entertainment utility called ChatGPT.

jgtrosh2• 3 years ago

Ok, it was apparently not the initial intent, but he did simulate that behaviour, and "Many academics believed that the program would be able to positively influence the lives of many people, particularly those with psychological issues, and that it could aid doctors working on such patients' treatment."

hindsightbias• 3 years ago

I’m presuming this doesn’t count any “accidental” ODs, which no doubt are a thing but not a 100% thing.

WiSaGaN• 3 years ago

You can reference "disease of despair" in this case, which includes "drug overdose (including alcohol overdose), suicide, and alcoholic liver disease". "For 2018, some 158,000 U.S. citizens died from these causes, compared to 65,000 in 1995." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_of_despair

droopyEyelids• 3 years ago

This is an interesting point because, from the people I've met, I'm not sure there are non-depressed opiate addicts? Like depression seems almost to be a prerequisite for opiate addiction. Also seems strongly correlated with alcoholism

vintermann2• 3 years ago

I guess they don't call them depressants for nothing.

LatteLazy• 3 years ago

I remember reading about the oddly high number of men who die in "accidents" where they drive at very high speed into large stationary objects without breaking or swerving. The theory being those are just suicides without notes that get miscatagorised as single vehicle fatal accidents.

unmole• 3 years ago

Suicide deaths rose from 48,183 in 2021 to an estimated 49,449 deaths in 2022, CDC said.

layer8• 3 years ago

More data here: https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/suicide-data-statistics.html

curation• 3 years ago

Our social order rewards being a martyr for capitalism. We supplement the banality of capitalist enjoyments with the surplus enjoyment of observing others lives in hell - in wars, in starvation and killing themselves. We should not look so close at what in particular is causing each individual or each group of individuals to do this or that horror but stand back and see that we are universally united in this struggle to be.

US suicide deaths reached record high in 2022

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