This is a very good list. Pretty much hits the mark.
If I had to add to it, I’d say the U.S. education system isn’t doing us any good, either. I think you’d know why; it’s been talked about to death before, after all.
I suspect it’s the generations of white males before you who are suffering most from a disconnect between what they were told to expect and what they actually got.
There plenty of support for dead ones - not so much for living vets who were damaged by their service and need medical, mental, and other forms of support to live good and fulfilling lives after they retire from the military.
Yep. It sucks. I’ve been saying that for (at least) 30 years. It just keeps getting worse.
I can’t help but think that’s tied to racism and myths about the poor and the non-white.
Oh, yeah - I sort of represent that last one… I’m trying to be an exception to the rule, but it’s damn hard.
I agree with you about toxic individualism.
There was actually an excellent article a few years ago in either Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair (I think it was RS but not completely sure) that talked about the ‘deaths of despair’. A long but really compelling read.
Over the past few decades, Americans have traded family and community for individual or household economic opportunities. Compounding the situation is the fact that, unlike the period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s (give or take a year or two), jobs are rarely ever stable anymore. The only people I know who’ve had the same employer for a long time tend to work in institutions such as government bureaucracies or universities. More people are working in situations in which they have to prepare for financial disruption such as losing a job – healthcare is another example of this disruption, as you point out. But then, I go back to the dissolution of communities and extended families in this society, which strips away valuable support systems.
See also
as reviewed here
plus this catch-all article:
with a decent references section.
Not based on what I can find. Not even in the top ten. Much less than South Korea and Russia, pretty much same as Japan.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country
Some that are low may be a reporting issue. The social stigma to the family may cause many to report other causes of death.
Do you other sources that contradict this?
Not an outlier for murder rate either, less than average albeit above median.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/murder-rate-by-country
Where does this unchallenged belief that the United States is an order of magnitude the world leader in people killing themselves and others come from? And why are so many so willing to accept something apparently very false as fact?
That said suicide rates are consistently increasing in the United States. Highest rates are rural.
Guns may be part of the explanation there. And despair.
I’m 70 years old, stoned, hastily getting my thoughts out before I forget forever. Sorry to have wasted your time
I don’t think anyone said “order of magnitude”. But murder and suicide rates in the USA do seem higher than other Western and Asian countries with similar levels of industrialization and GDP.
What do you think was the first sentence of the first post?
I do know some people who have managed to keep decade+ long careers in companies. But I feel like I know many more that don’t. Particularly in any kind of IT or technology related job. What I find frustrating is how arbitrary it seems. After my son was born, I was laid off from my firm when it was acquired by a much larger firm. I ended up at a small management consulting firm that mostly did project management for large banks and pharma companies. It was kind of boring, but perfectly fine. It offered a reasonable work/life balance so I could actually have a life outside of work. Then business started to slow down and I was let go again. Then Ianded at a software company which I actually really liked working at. Except then COVID happened and they laid off me and most of my group after 11 months. Then I found a job at a startup for more money and a better title, but that lasted like 6 months. I’m not really sure why, but it seemed like a really disorganized and chaotic work environment that was more focussed on the appearance of having a “great culture”. The fact that the head of my group and several director-level peers quit with no jobs lined up shortly after left sort of implies to me that something was wrong there.
The point being I find this sort of turnover very stressful. When people talk about “work from home burnout” or “Americans putting in extra overtime and never taking vacation” or “why do educated people work 100 hours a week” this is the reason why. If a company will only keep 3 out of 10 people (or whatever the number is) then you don’t want to be the one who falls on the performance ladder because you didn’t answer that email at 1:00am or didn’t spend an extra 20 hours outside of normal business hours figuring out what the Customer Success Manager missed when he sold the project you are now responsible for.
I would imagine suicide rates are lower for more educated employees, as they have more financial and professional options. But I think it’s still unhealthy and unsustainable.
I [quote=“The_Other_Waldo_Pepper, post:70, topic:942975, full:true”]
What do you think was the first sentence of the first post?
[/quote]
I assumed it was hyperbole.
Okaaay … so let’s set aside “hyperbole” … the United States overall has worse suicide and homicide rates than many other “developed” countries.
Suicide in particular seems to be a much bigger problem in rural America, where despair is common. The rates in urban America are more in line with the rest of the so-called “developed world”.
Rates are highest among Native American populations, next among whites, and lowest among Black, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander American populations. (Source.)
Digging into the specific factors, research shows some strong correlations
The study used three indices:
Conclusion:
So yes, despair, with decreasing social connectedness and supports, more social isolation, lack of health coverage, high numbers of veterans, and easy impulsive access to particularly lethal means (guns), all are correlated with the huge numbers in rural America that push the nations suicide numbers to the top section of its peer group.
Murder OTOH seems to be clustered more on the urban side of the rural-urban divide, sharing perhaps easy access to the amplifier that is easy access to guns.
Several posters have challenged my use of the term “order of magnitude” when describing the comparison of Americans killing each other and themselves. It’s true that the US suicide rate is more in line with other developed countries although significantly higher, but the murder rate is off the charts. In 2017, the murder rate in Canada was 1.76 per 100,000 people while the rate in America was 49.6
Cite?
Google " Murder rate USA" and google “murder rate Canada”.
Uh, okay. You said 2017, right? First thing that popped up for me says of the US: “There were 5.3 murders per 100,000 people in 2017.” Then, as if to elaborate, there’s this: “The murder rate fell from 5.4 per 100,000 people in 2016 to 5.3 per 100,000 in 2017”. And then — no, wait; I’m good.
So not going with the hyperbole story offered up?
@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper’s citation agrees with what I already cited. You are off by, well, an order of magnitude.
To be clear: the point can be made well enough with accurate numbers. Canada has roughly a third of the murder rate as the United States. Even just comparing urban rates between the countries the United States has many more murders per capita than Canada has.
And the U.S. has a fraction of Mexico’s rate.
We don’t have to be the very worst and by an order of magnitude at that for it to be worth addressing.
Mea Culpa. I was in error by an order of magnitude Thank you for the correction. My apologies to everyone.
Or looking at it another way, white men are told they have all the advantages, and if they fail they don’t get to excuse it by blaming racism or sexism, in a culture where failure is very much stigmatised.