Suicide

LV426 said:
But it hasn't because its population continues to grow.

You are trying to focus on the people who may have left, and using that in a vacuum to somehow argue that CA is bad because look at the people leaving it in this narrow window I cherry picked; but while you make that shitty argument, you ignore the data that shows CA's population growing, both via immigration and live births in the state.

You are using a hack argument from 2012 (and it was a hack argument then, too), and because you are incapable of ever evolving on a topic (because in your own words, you're "pretty dumb"), you fall into the trap of repeating bullshit while refusing to be held accountable for doing so.

You're an entitled, privileged jerk.
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He wants to blame Mexicans and continue telling the lie that people are moving out of CA in droves...…..I wish he was one of them.
 
Oneuli said:
David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, has a new op-ed about the rise in teenage suicide rates. Being a reactionary, he naturally looks for something newfangled to blame, and decides it's attributable to technology -- online trolling, specifically. I'm not convinced.

For starters, take a look at suicide rates by age:

Crude_US_suicide_rate_by_age_1981-2016.png


Rates are lowest among the young, and they've been rising for every age demographic, including the elderly block we'd expect to be least impacted by cyber-bullying. And while the rise of social media has been a global phenomenon, there hasn't been a rise in suicide in all of the tech-savvy nations, as we'd expect if cyber-bullying were a big driver:

20160430_USC246_0.png


Things have actually been getting better in Germany, Sweden, and France, for example.

Also, if you check rates by state, you'll see there are huge variations among the states, and those with the biggest problem are definitely not the ones with the highest Internet usage or Facebook penetration:

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/population-health/us-states-ranked-by-suicide-rate.html
https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats26.htm

The least suicidal states, for example, are NJ, NY, MA, MD, CT, CA, IL, RI, DE, and HI. In terms of Facebook penetration, they rank 7th, 19th, 6th, 25th, 32nd, 15th, 2nd, 3rd, 50th, and 13th. So, eight out of ten have unusually high Facebook engagement. If cyber-bullying were a major driver of rates, we'd expect most of those states to have unusually serious problems with suicide. But there just doesn't seem to be any meaningful positive correlation between social media/Internet usage and suicide, at the state level. If anything, the correlation seems to go the opposite way, with the less "online" states having more suicide problems.

So, I just don't see data to back Brooks's view. However, if you look at the data, something else does stick out. Of the ten least suicidal states, every single one voted for Hillary Clinton. At the other end of the spectrum, you have MT, AK, WY, NM, UT, NV, ID, OK, CO, SD, and WV -- seven out of ten of which went for Trump. I think that rather than looking to blame technology (or other pet arguments Brooks tends to reach for, like blaming a move away from traditional religion for society's ills), we'd do well to think about what it is about conservative societies that makes people suicidally depressed (or, if you prefer, what it is about liberal societies that makes them less so). Possibly it could have to do with economic opportunities, mental health support, or just the tone of the culture. Urbanization might also be a factor -- e.g., the boredom and inactivity of rural life contributing to substance abuse and obesity, which in turn contribute to depression and suicide.
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It is most likely because no matter how hard people work, the democrats want them to work more, for less, and want to give their money to sloths!
 
Wolverine said:
So what kind of music do you find entertaining? I am not a country fan by the way!!
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Lately I've been getting pretty eclectic.... like Mongolian throat singing, Reinaissance madrigals, Czech folk music, etc. Our pop musical palette tends to be fairly narrow, and it can be nice to break completely out of it, from time to time.
 
Wolverine said:
It is most likely because no matter how hard people work, the democrats want them to work more, for less, and want to give their money to sloths!
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Keep in mind, there appears to be a correlation between suicide and areas where Democrats have less power (red states, rural areas, etc.) That would suggest that it's not something about the Democrats driving this, other than maybe the fact that in areas where they lack much power, they're not as able to do the things that drive down suicide (e.g., supporting mental health treatment, working against poverty, supporting policies that make people happier, etc.)
 
Oneuli said:
Keep in mind, there appears to be a correlation between suicide and areas where Democrats have less power (red states, rural areas, etc.) That would suggest that it's not something about the Democrats driving this, other than maybe the fact that in areas where they lack much power, they're not as able to do the things that drive down suicide (e.g., supporting mental health treatment, working against poverty, supporting policies that make people happier, etc.)
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I get that they support mental hlth. tx. but working against poverty? They seem to work to increase poverty by enabling it.
Supporting policies that make people happier? Like what? That's vague.
 
anonymoose said:
but working against poverty? They seem to work to increase poverty by enabling it.
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No. I think there's a pretty clear tendency of Democrats to focus on anti-poverty measures, while Republicans are willing to let poverty fester, in favor of focusing on ways to allow the rich to become richer. I think you can see the impact in terms of historical trends based on whether we have Democratic or Republican presidents. See here:

https://www2.census.gov/programs-su...-series/historical-poverty-people/hstpov2.xls

That shows you the poverty rate by year. Here's the change by president:

Kennedy -2.7
Johnson -6.7
Carter +1.2
Clinton -3.5
Obama -0.5
-----------
Eisenhower -0.2
Nixon -1.6
Ford +0.6
Reagan Unchanged
Father Bush +1.8
Young Bush +1.9
Trump -0.4

So, the net change during Republican administrations is an increase of 2.1, and the net change during Democratic administrations is -12.2.

Supporting policies that make people happier?
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Family medical leave, tighter enforcement of overtime laws, subsidized student loans, improved public transit, preservation of public land, decreasing pollution, etc.
 
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